The city is located 56 kilometres (35 miles) southwest of Zagreb and 130 km (81 mi) northeast of Rijeka, and is connected to them via the A1 highway and the M202 railway.

The German name Karlstadt[5] or Carlstadt ("Charlestown") has the equivalence in various languages: in Hungarian it is known as Károlyváros, in Italian as Carlovizza, in Latin as Carolostadium, and in Kajkavian dialect and Slovene as Karlovec.

It was founded as a six-pointed star fortress built on the Zrinski estate near the old town of Dubovac at the confluence of the Kupa and Korana rivers.

He was executed in Karlovac on 3 July 1612 as an example to his troops who were creating difficulties for the Habsburgs by their piracy against Venetian shipping on the Adriatic Sea, and by marauding raids into the Ottoman hinterland.

By the end of the 18th century, the town was a major marketplace for wheat, corn, salt, timber and tobacco, and the source of supply for the Austrian army in Austro-Turkish Wars.

Maria Theresa was also responsible for the founding of Gymnasium Karlovac, and later King Joseph II reaffirmed it as a free town with an official charter in 1781.

This allowed the citizens to expand the city and exploit the potential of being at the crossroads of paths from the Pannonian plains to the Adriatic coast.

The construction of the Zidani Most-Zagreb-Sisak railway line in 1861, however, marked the end of the era of Karlovac as a major trade and transport center.

[18] One of the rarer trees found in the parks is the Ginkgo biloba, which local primary school children are taken out to see as part of their classes on nature and society.

Most of the parks are planted in the former trenches dug around the old military fort that were once filled with water as an added layer of protection from the marauding Ottoman armies.

The migration outflow was mostly towards Serbia, the Republika Srpska entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and to countries of Western Europe, North America and Australia.

In the 20th century, Karlovac was a breeding ground for young rock bands, most notably Elektroni in the 1960s and Nužni Izlaz, Prije svega disciplina, Duhovna pastva and Lorelei in the 1970s and the 1980s.