The architecture of Croatia has roots in a long history: the Croats have inhabited the area for fourteen centuries, but there are important remnants of earlier periods still preserved in the country. The historic architecture of most old towns on the coast is Venetian, a legacy of the Venetian empire. The Habsburg and Ottoman empires also influenced the architecture of the region.

Copper Age finds are from Vučedol culture (named after Vučedol near Vukovar). In Vučedol, people lived on hilltops with palisade walls. Houses were half buried, mostly square or circular (they were also combined in mushroom shape), with floors of burned clay and circular fireplaces.

The Bronze culture of the Illyrians, an ethnic group with distinct culture and art, started to organize itself in what is now Croatia. Numerous monumental sculptures are preserved, as well as walls of the citadel Nezakcij near Pula, one of numerous Istrian cities from the Iron Age.

Greek sailors and merchants reached almost every part of the Mediterranean including the shores of today's Croatia; there they have founded city-states in which they lived quite isolated. Trade cities on the Adriatic shores such as Tragurion (today Trogir), Salona (Solin near Split), Epetion (today Poreč), Issa (Vis), were geometrically shaped and had villas, harbors, public buildings, temples and theatres. While the Greek colonies were flourishing on the island, on the continent the Illyrians were organizing their centers. Their art was greatly influenced by Greek art, and they even copied some. In the Neretva Delta, there was an important influence of the Hellenistic Illyrian tribe of Daors.

Romans subdued the Greek colonial cities in the 3rd century BC. They imposed an organization based on a military-economical system. Furthermore, the Romans subdued the Illyrians in the first century BC and organized the entire coastal territory by transforming the citadels into urban cities. After that the history of these parts is the history of Illyrian provinces of the Roman Empire. Numerous rustic villas, and new urban settlements (the most impressive are Verige in Brijuni, Pula and Trogir – formerly Tragurion) demonstrate the high level of Roman urbanization. There were at least thirty urban cities in Istria, Liburnia and Dalmatia with Roman citizenship (civitas). The best-preserved networks of Roman streets (decumanus/cardo) are those in Epetion (Poreč) and Jader (Zadar). The most perfectly preserved Roman monuments are in Pola (Pula); founded in the first century dedicated to Julius Caesar. It is full of classical Roman art such as: stone walls, two city gates, two temples on the Forum, and remains of two theaters, as well as the Sergii's Arch from the year 30 AD, and the Temple of Augustus built in the years 2 to 14 AD, and finally the Fluvian Amphitheater (so called – Pula Arena) from the 2nd century. In the 3rd century AD, the city of Salona became the largest (it had 40,000 inhabitants) and most important city of Dalmatia. Near the city emperor Diocletian, born in Salona, built Diocletian's Palace around year the 300 AD, which is the largest and most important monument of late antique architecture in the world. On its pathways, cellars, domes, mausoleums, arcades and courtyards we can trace numerous different art influences from the entire Empire. In the 4th century, Salona became the center of Christianity for the entire western Balkans. It had numerous basilicas and necropolises, and even two saints: Domnius (Duje) and Anastasius (Staš).

One of few preserved basilicas in western Europe (besides the ones in Ravenna) from the time of early Byzantium is Euphrasian Basilica in Poreč from the 6th century. The early Middle Ages brought the great migration of the Slavs and this period was perhaps a Dark Age in the cultural sense until the successful formation of the Slavic states which coexisted with Italic cities that remained on the coast, each of them modelled after Venice.

In the 7th century, the Croats, with other Slavs and Avars, came from Northern Europe to the region where they live today. They were on the level of Iron Age nomadic culture, so they did not know how to enjoy the advantages of urban cities. This is why they first inhabited city boundaries on close by rivers (like Jadro near Roman Salona).

The Croats were open to Roman art and culture, and first of all to Christianity. First churches were built as royal sanctuaries, and the influence of Roman art was strongest in Dalmatia where the urbanization was thickest and there were the largest number of monuments. Gradually that influence was neglected and certain simplification, alteration of inherited forms, and even creation of original buildings appeared. All of them (a dozen large ones and hundreds of small ones) were built with roughly cut stone (natively called – lomljenac) bounded with thick layer of mortar from outside. Large churches are longitudinal with one or three naves like the St. Saviour at the source of the river Cetina, built in the 9th century. The church has strong semi-circular buttresses that give a feeling of fortification, emphasized by the mighty bell-tower positioned in front of entrance.