Makarska (; , ; ) is a town on the Adriatic coastline of Croatia, about southeast of Split and northwest of Dubrovnik, in the Split-Dalmatia County. Makarska is a prominent regional tourist center, located on a horseshoe-shaped bay between the Biokovo mountains and the Adriatic Sea. The city is noted for its palm-fringed promenade, where cafes, bars and boutiques overlook the harbor. Adjacent to the beach are several large capacity hotels as well as a camping grounds. Makarska is the center of the Makarska Riviera, a popular tourist destination under the Biokovo mountain. It stretches for between the municipalities of Brela and Gradac. History Pre-history Near present-day Makarska, there was a settlement as early as the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. It is thought that it was a point used by the Cretans on their way up to the Adriatic (the so-called "amber road"). However it was only one of the ports with links with the wider Mediterranean, as shown by a copper tablet with Cretan and Egyptian systems of measurement. A similar tablet was found in the Egyptian pyramids. In the Illyrian era this region was part of the broader alliance of tribes, led by the Ardaeans, founded in the third century BC in the Cetina area (Omiš) down to the River Vjosë in present-day Albania. The Roman era Although the Romans became rulers of the Adriatic by defeating the Ardiaei in 228, it took them two centuries to confirm their rule. The Romans sent their veteran soldiers to settle in Makarska. After the division of the Empire in 395, this part of the Adriatic became part of the Eastern Roman Empire and many people fled to Muccurum from the new wave of invaders. The town appears in the Tabula Peutingeriana as the port of Inaronia, but is mentioned as Muccurum, a larger settlement that grew up in the most inaccessible part of Biokovo mountain, probably at the very edge of the Roman civilisation. It appears as Macrum on the acts of the Salonan Synod of 4 May 533 AD held in Salona (533), when also the town's diocese was created. Early Middle Ages During the Migration Period, in 548, Muccurum was destroyed by the army of the Ostrogoth king Totila. The byzantine Emperor expelled the Eastern Goths (Ostrogoths). In the 7th century the region between the Cetina and Neretva was occupied by the Narentines, with Mokro, located