Rovinj is one of the most developed seaside resorts in Croatia, offering a whole range of visitor opportunities in a picturesque ambience of the ancient town, surrounded by luxuriant pine forests (the cape of Zlatni Rt is designated as a park forest, while the coast and islands of Rovinj are set aside as a protected landscape).

The beginning of tourism was marked by the introduction of a steamship line between Rovinj and Trieste (1845) and the construction of the railroad to Vienna (1876). In 1896 the town had a well-maintained public beach, Val di Lone, and several boarding houses (Alla citta di Trieste, Al Miramar, Alla porta antica and Al vecchio albergo). The year 1888 may be considered the official beginning of tourism in Rovinj, when the health resort Maria Theresia was opened in the town. This oldest institution of that kind on the Adriatic coast was established by the Viennese society for the establishment and development of maritime health resorts and asylums for poor children and scrofulosis and rachitis patients. The health resort was visited by children from the entire Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and other countries. The development of tourism was continued with the construction of Hotel Jadran (today Centar), which was built before the First World War by the Society for the Construction of the First Hotel in Rovinj, to meet the needs of an increasing number of tourists and eminent persons who spent their vacation in Rovinj. The Polish count Ignac-Karol Korwin Milewsky bought the island of Sveta Katarina in 1905, carried out its afforestation and built two castles. In 1890 Baron Georg von Hüterodt purchased the island of Sveti Andrija and turned its former monastery building into a hotel; the island thus became the favourite seaside resort of the Austro-Hungarian clientele (memorial book Cissa-Insel). Between the two world wars the construction of hotels stagnated. After the Second World War many deserted buildings were transformed into workers' rest homes, and the island of Sveta Katarina has been frequented by children from Zagreb since 1947. An important date in the development of tourism in Rovinj was 1959, when the problem of potable water was finally solved by connection to the Istrian Waterworks from Buzet.

Rovinj is a typical example of a town of the Mediterranean type. It was fortified by walls in two rows as early as the Middle Ages, with three town gates (restored and reinforced by Venice in the 15th c.), later pulled down or integrated into new structures. From the 17th century the town started to develop outside the town walls and in 1763 the islet was connected with the mainland. The town is dominated by the Baroque three-nave church of St. Euphemia (Fuma), erected in 1736 on the location of earlier sacral buildings.

On the Muntrav peninsula, south of Rovinj, is a large park with rare Mediterranean plant species. Here are also old quarries from which stone was excavated, used also for the construction of the Ducal Palace and other monumental buildings in Venice.

The Rovinj Town Museum keeps a valuable collection of paintings from the period between the 16th and the 18th centuries, as well as a contemporary art collection. - Every summer, the artists who live and work in Rovinj organize the traditional, picturesque one-day exhibition in the open, in Grisia.

Rovinj was first mentioned in the 7th century, under the name Ruvignio (Ruigno). From the 6th century it belonged to the Exarchate of Ravenna and in AD 788 it became part of Franconia; for several centuries it was under different feudal lords, from 1209 under the rule of the Aquilean patriarch and from 1283 under Venice. Rovinj got its statutes in 1531. On the fall of the Venetian Republic in 1797 it came under Austria, in 1918 under Italy. In 1945 Rovinj was joined to the mother country, Croatia.