Today the coat of arms of Ragusa, in its red and blue version, can be seen in the coat of arms on the Croatian flag as it constitutes a historic part of Croatia. Population The historian Nenad Vekarić used tax evidence from the Dubrovnik littoral () and a census to find that the Republic of Dubrovnik (Ragusa) had a population of nearly 90,000 by 1500. From then to 1700 the population declined: in the first half of the 16th century it had more than 50,000 inhabitants; in the second half of the 16th century, between 50,000 and 60,000; in the 1630s, about 40,000; and in 1673–74, only 26,000 inhabitants. In the second half of the 15th century, due to Turkish expansion, Dubrovnik received a large number of Christian refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina, offering them the less fertile land. Numerous epidemics, the Candian War of 1645–69, the 1667 earthquake, and emigration greatly reduced the population levels. The population of the republic never again reached its previous levels. Languages and literature Originally, Latin was used in official documents of the Republic. Italian came to use in the 1420s. Both languages were used in official correspondence by the Republic. The Republic was influenced by the Venetian language and the Tuscan dialect. The population spoke the local variant of the Shtokavian dialect, the same dialect upon which modern Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin and Serbian, are all based. Old Ragusan, a variant of Dalmatian that was spoken on the Dalmatian coast following the end of the Roman Empire, with elements of old Slavic vernacular, commonly referred to as ilirski (Illyrian), and Italian, was among the common languages. Since it was mainly used in speech, it is poorly documented. Its use started declining in the 15th century. The use of Croatian in everyday speech increased in late 13th century, and in literary works in mid-15th century. At the end of the 14th century, inhabitants of the republic were mostly native speakers of Croatian, referred to by them as Croatian, Slavic, or Illyrian at the time. There is still some debate over whether Shtokavian or Chakavian was the oldest Slavic vernacular in Ragusa. The oldest Slavic documents and the earlier prose was Shtokavian, while 16th-century poetry was Chakavian. The Cyrillic script in handwriting was sometimes used. When Ragusa was part of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy, between 1808 and 1810, Italian was still in official use. Croatian