Terracotta roofs inside white walls
Dubrovnik
A walled city of pale stone on the Adriatic, covered by a tight field of orange roof tiles.
Why Dubrovnik is terracotta orange
Dubrovnik stands on the southern coast of Croatia. For centuries it was an independent trading republic called Ragusa. The old city is enclosed by a complete circuit of stone walls, and visitors walk along the top. Looking down, they see roofs of curved clay tile packed closely together. The tiles tell a recent story. During the siege of 1991 and 1992 most roofs were hit by shells. They were repaired with new tiles in a bright, even orange, while the few surviving old roofs are a faded, patchy ochre. The streets below are paved with limestone polished by feet until it shines. The sea beyond is deep blue. The city is a World Heritage Site.
#D9703CLimestone white#EDE8DCOld tile ochre#C9965AAdriatic blue#1F6FA8Shutter green#3F6F4FValues are fair approximations of what the eye sees there, not measurements.
Written by the Rang desk with AI assistance. Background: "Dubrovnik" on Wikipedia. If you know Dubrovnik and we have it wrong, tell us.
More colour cities
All colour cities
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🇮🇳 The Orange CityNagpurA city in central India named for a fruit: the loose-skinned Nagpur orange grown in the country around it.
🇱🇦 Town of saffron robesLuang PrabangAt dawn lines of monks in orange robes walk the streets of the old Lao royal capital to receive alms.
🇳🇦 The red dunes of the NamibSossusvleiSome of the tallest sand dunes on earth, coloured orange-red by iron, around white clay pans.
🇮🇹 Five pastel villages on a cliff coastCinque TerreTall houses in ochre, pink and yellow crowd tiny harbours below terraced vineyards on the Italian Riviera.
🇫🇷 The ochre villageRoussillonA Provençal hill village built on, and painted with, cliffs of red, orange and yellow ochre.Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Varanasi In: Marcin Białek, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Nagpur In: Gppande, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Luang Prabang La: Shelly Zohar, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Sossusvlei Na: Anagoria, CC BY 3.0, source
- Cinque Terre It: This Photo was taken by Timothy A. Gonsalves . Feel free to use my pho, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Roussillon Fr: Hawobo at German Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 2.0 de, source