Vukovar

Vukovar stands where the Vuka flows into the Danube. In the Middle Ages it was the seat of Vukovo County, with a royal fortress above a suburb of merchants and craftsmen near the harbour. Duke Coloman granted the settlement the privileges of a free royal town in 1231, and its river location helped make it one of Slavonia's important urban centres.

Ottoman forces took Vukovar in 1526, and the town became a centre of a judicial district in the Sanjak of Syrmia. The retreating Ottomans burned much of it in 1687, and further fighting damaged it in the years that followed. In the eighteenth century a new town developed on the left bank of the Vuka, while merchants and craftsmen occupied the older settlement on the right. The Eltz family acquired the estate and built a grand residence between 1749 and 1751.