Smiljan resort is located in the central part of the Velebit-Lika plain, on the western edge of the field at the foot of the hill Krčmar.

In the surroundings are Hill-forts Bogdanić, Smiljan and Krčmar, prehistoric tombs, the churches of St. Anastasia, St. Mark and St. Vitus.

Another hypothesis focuses on milja, Croatian for "mile", present in other toponyms such as Miljača hill, which suggests a connection with a nearby merchant road.

Until that time the Ottoman aghas, Rizvan and Zenković, from Novi near Gospić had estates in Smiljan, Bužim and Trnovac.

[4] During World War II, the town was occupied by Axis troops and was included into the Pavelić's Independent State of Croatia (NDH).

The house in which the inventor Nikola Tesla was born, as well as the Serbian Orthodox church in which his father had served as a priest, were destroyed by the Ustashe movement in 1941.

[12] The village of Smiljan (with Brušane and Oštarije) was incorporated to the Croatian Military Frontier only in 1713 (after being separated from the city of Karlobag), and subsequently registered in the 1712/14 census done in Lika and Krbava.

[20] Some of the most numerous families (actually kind of tribe-collective) in Lika and Krbava were in Smiljan; of count and captain Nikola Rukavina Bevandić (56 members), Dujam Kovačević (50), Ivan Devčić (46), Mijat Lemajić (40), Juriša Pavičić (40), Milanko Pejnović (40), Petar Serdar (40), Ilija Brkljačić (30), and Anton Tomljenović (30).

[25] Today, Tesla's birth house, together with the Serbian Orthodox church of St. Peter and Paul (built in 1765)[26] and the surrounding area, make up a memorial complex.