Notable features of Sušak include the public beaches at Pećine and Glavanovo, along with the Tower Center shopping mall.

Sušak was a municipality separate from the city of Rijeka and since the 19th century, it experienced faster urbanisation and population growth.

In 1924, Rijeka belonged to the independent Free State of Fiume, which had been created four years earlier under the Treaty of Rapallo, but in the Treaty of Rome the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes and Italy agreed to dissolve the free state.

In her 1941 travel book, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Rebecca West dedicates a chapter to "Sushak" (sic).

...And at places where no frontiers could possibly be, in the middle of a square, or on a bridge linking the parts of a quay, men in uniform step forward and demand passports..."