Šibenik is a historic city in Croatia, located in central Dalmatia where the river Krka flows into the Adriatic Sea. Šibenik is a political, educational, transport, industrial and tourist center of Šibenik-Knin County, and is also the third-largest city in the historic region of Dalmatia. As of 2011, the City of Šibenik has 46,332 inhabitants, while the town has 34,302 inhabitants.

There are multiple interpretations of how Šibenik was named. In his fifteenth century book De situ Illiriae et civitate Sibenici, Juraj Šizgoric describes the name and location of Šibenik. He attributes the name of the city to it being surrounded by a palisade made of šibe (sticks, singular being šiba). Another interpretation is associated with the forest through the Latin toponym "Sibinicum," which covered a narrower microregion within Šibenik on and around the area of St. Michael's Fortress.