Metković

Metković lies on the lower Neretva, beneath Predolac Hill, where the river winds toward the Adriatic. Its name appears in a Ragusan court record of 1422 concerning a boat seized by customs officers on the river below the settlement. Small and unwalled, Metković later stood in a frontier zone contested by the Ottoman Empire and Venice.

During the wars of the 17th century the settlement was exposed to raids: it was burned in 1662 and devastated again in the 1680s. Towers were built in the vulnerable river district as its commercial position gained importance. The fixing of the Venetian–Ottoman boundary in 1719 placed Metković under Venetian rule, and a parish was established there in the same year. Its river landing connected the border settlement with traffic along the Neretva.