Early history
The first organized human habitations here can be traced back to the Stone Age. There is a Neolithic site called Feren?ica near Prelog. There are archaeological sites that date from the Bronze Age, and 3rd century sites called Cigli�?e and Vara�?ine .
During the Iron Age, the Indo-European tribes identified in the area were Celts, Serets and Pannons, and the region became part of the Roman empire. In the 1st century, the Romans knew the area as Insula intra Dravam et Muram ("island between the Drava and Mura rivers") according to the geographer Strabo. The region was part of the Roman province of Pannonia and later part of the Pannonia Superior.
?akovec was originally called Aquama ("the wet city"), because the area was marshland. During the Migration Period, many different tribes, such as Huns, Visigoths, and Ostrogoths, passed through the region. The region was part of the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths, the state of the Lombards, the Avar Khaganate, and the Frankish Kingdom. The Slavs, which settled this region in the 6th century, gained independence after destruction of the Avar Khaganate. In the 9th century, two Slavic states included this area - the Principality of Lower Pannonia and the Principality of Pannonian Croatia. According to some sources, the area was also part of the Great Moravia. Subsequently, the area was included into the medieval Kingdom of Croatia.
Hungarian administration (until 1526)
The Hungarians temporarily occupied the region in 896, up to the river Sava, but it was officially included into the Kingdom of Hungary in 1102, with the rest of Croatian Kingdom. Hungarian king Andrew II designated the border between the main part of the Kingdom of Hungary and Banovina of Slavonia at the Drava River in 1213. During that century, tradesmen and merchants (mostly ethnic Germans) started to arrive and began to develop the urban localities that are present today. Prelog was founded in 1264,
