The main square, the meeting point under the clock, and a statue that has been turned around twice for political reasons.
Zagreb’s main square is a tram interchange, a meeting point, a protest ground and a market approach, and it has been rebuilt to suit whoever was in charge at the time.
The statue
Josip Jelačić was Ban — viceroy — of Croatia from 1848, and he is a complicated figure: he abolished serfdom in Croatia, and he led an army against the Hungarian revolution on behalf of Vienna, which makes him a national hero and a reactionary depending on which history you were taught.
The statue went up in 1866, by the Austrian sculptor Anton Fernkorn, with the sabre pointing north towards Hungary.
In 1947 the communist authorities removed it as a symbol of nationalism, and the square was renamed Republic Square. The statue was taken apart and stored.
In 1990, as Yugoslavia broke up, it was brought back — but turned around, so the sabre now points south. The official reasoning was aesthetic. Nobody in Zagreb believes that.
Manduševac
At the eastern end is a fountain over the Manduševac spring, which supplied the settlement below the hills and, by legend, gave the city its name — a ban asked a girl named Manda to zagrabi, to scoop him water.
The spring was covered over in 1898 and the fountain restored in 1987.
The square itself
Nineteenth-century facades on three sides, mostly Historicist and Secession, with a number of very good buildings that people walk past without looking up.
The clock on the north side is the meeting point for the entire city.
Trams cut across it constantly. It is not a quiet square and it was never meant to be.
What happens here
Everything. New Year’s Eve, the main Advent stage, football celebrations — the square held enormous crowds when Croatia reached the World Cup final in 2018 and again in 2022 — political rallies, and the daily business of a city of 770,000 people crossing on their way somewhere else.
Around it
Dolac is up the steps at the north-east corner.
Ilica, the long shopping street, runs west from the square.
Tkalčićeva runs north from the corner by the market.
The funicular is five minutes west along Ilica.
More Landmarks
Zagreb Cathedral
The tallest building in Croatia, rebuilt after one earthquake and taken apart again after another.
St Mark's Church
The tiled roof everyone photographs, on a square you can stand in but not linger on.
The Funicular and Lotrščak Tower
Sixty-six seconds on one of the shortest funiculars in the world, and a cannon fired at noon every day since 1877.