Dubrovnik is a Croatian city on the Adriatic Sea coast in the extreme south of Dalmatia, positioned at the terminal end of the Isthmus of Dubrovnik. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations on the Adriatic, a seaport and the center of Dubrovnik-Neretva county. Its population was 43,770 in 2001 down from 49,728 in 1991. In 1979, the city of Dubrovnik joined the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. The prosperity of the city of Dubrovnik has always been based on maritime trade. In the Middle Ages, as the Republic of Ragusa, also known as the fifth Maritime Republic (together with Amalfi, Pisa, Genoa and Venice), it became the only eastern Adriatic city-state to rival Venice. Supported by its wealth and skilled diplomacy, the city achieved a remarkable level of development, particularly during the 15th and 16th centuries. Although demilitarized in 1970s with a purpose to prevent it from war devastation forever, in 1991 after the breakup of Yugoslavia it was besieged by Serb-Montenegrin forces for 7 months and heavily damaged by bombing. In Croatian, and all other Slavic languages, the city is known as Dubrovnik; in Italian as Ragusa, its historical name, in Greek as Raiyia (????????????) or Ragousa (??????????????). The current Croatian name was officially adopted in 1918 after the fall of Austria???Hungary.