Gospić is a town in the mountainous and sparsely populated region of Lika, Croatia. It is the administrative centre of Lika-Senj county. Gospić is located near the Lika River in the middle of a karst field. Gospić is the third smallest seat of a county government in Croatia. Its status as the county capital helped to spur some development in it, but the town as well as the entire region have suffered a constant decrease in population over the last several decades. Scientist and inventor Nikola Tesla was born in the nearby village of Smiljan and grew up in Gospić.
The first organised inhabitation of the area was recorded in 1263 as Kaseg or Kasezi. The name Gospić is first mentioned in 1604, which likely originates from the Croatian word for "lady" or another archaic form, gospava. It was ruled by Ottoman Empire as part of Sanjak of Lika initially in Rumeli Eyalet, later in Bosnia Eyalet. Today's town was built around two Ottoman forts. The Turkish incursion was repelled by the end of the 17th century and Gospić became an administrative centre of the Lika region within the Military Frontier. Until 1918, Gospić was part of the Austrian monarchy, in the Croatian Military Frontier, Likaner Regiment N° I. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, Gospić was part of the Lika-Krbava County of the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia. According to one source, at the beginning of the World War II a concentration camp was established in Gospić in which Ustaše might have killed between 24,000-42,000 people, most of them being Serbs and Jews, but some of the prisoners were also Croatian. In the 1990s, during the course of the Croatian War of Independence, Gospić suffered greatly during the Battle of Gospić. The town was held by Croatian government forces throughout the war, while the rebel Serb forces of the Republic of Serbian Krajina occupied positions directly to the east and often bombarded the town from there. In February 1992, a statue of the Serb scientist Nikola Tesla in downtown Gospić was destroyed in an explosion. The perpetrators were never apprehended. Control of the area finally devolved to the Croatian government with the success of Operation Storm in August 1995. Gospic is also the site of one of the regional branches of the Croatian State Archives, the Državni arhiv Gospić, at Kaniška 17. It was founded 30 September 1999 and officially opened 1 September 2000 in a renovated building and now houses historical documents of relevance to the Lika-Senj region which were formerly housed in the Regional Archive at Karlovac. In 2013, Croatian Prime MinisterZoran Milanović urged the town's authorities to allow for a replica of the Tesla statue that had been destroyed in 1992 to be reinstated. The mayor of Gospić, Nikola Kolić, refused to give his approval for such a move and instead vowed to erect a statue of wartime Croatian PresidentFranjo Tuđmanon the spot where the Tesla statue had once stood.
Gospić has a humid continental climate, Dfb by Köppen climate classification, with mean temperatures varying from in January to in July. Being situated higher than above sea level, the area experiences high diurnal ranges, especially in summer, and frost has been recorded in every month except for July. The record low and high temperatures are and, respectively. Gospić is also quite a rainy city, with a slight summer minimum, but it experiences plentiful precipitation all year long, with the maximum being in autumn. During winter, Gospić can get strong blizzards, with on average 5.1 days a year when more than falls, and 16.1 days when more than falls. Its record snow cover was, and it was measured in February 1916.
