Ethnicity
The inhabitants of the Republic of Ragusa were chiefly of South Slavic ethnicity. They were Catholics and spoke the local variant of the Shtokavian dialect (the same dialect upon which all modern regional languages are based). Among the modern South Slavic nations, Ragusans are mostly attributed to Croats in modern literature. However, discussions on the subject of Ragusan ethnicity are mainly based on revised concepts which developed after the fall of the Republic; in particular, the time of Romantic Nationalism resulting from the French Revolution. Before this, states in general were not based on the contemporary unifying concepts such as nation, language or ethnicity; loyalty was chiefly to family, city, and (among Catholics such as the Ragusans) the Church.
The great cartographer, Muhammad al-Idrisi (in 1154), considered Dubrovnik as a part of the Croatian (Grwasiah) entity (mentions it as "the last Croatian coastal city") in his book Nuzhat al-Mushataq fi ikhtiraq al-afaq (English: Joy for those who wish to sail over the world).
Read more about this topic: Republic Of Ragusa