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Herceg Novi is a coastal town in Montenegro located at the entrance to the Bay of Kotor and at the foot of Mount Orjen. It is the administrative center of the Herceg-Novi municipality and has a population of about 17,000.

The place was founded in 1382 under the name Sveti Stjepan (St. Stephen) by the Bosnian king Tvrtko I so as not to be dependent on the autonimic port towns Dubrovnik or Kotor. The modern name Herceg Novi is derived from the fact that the town in the 15th century was in possession of duke (herceg) Stjepan Vukčić Kosača. Herceg Novi is one of the youngest historical towns in the Adriatic region, where most settlements were already founded in antiquity and only very few originated during the Middle Ages. Herceg Novi was the only settlement in the Bay of Kotor area that did not come under the rule of Venice in 1420. Instead, it was conquered by the Turks in 1482 and, except with a brief interruption in 1538/1539, remained part of the Ottoman empire until 1687 when it was conquered by the Republic of Venice. As part of the Serenissima's Albania veneta province, Herceg Novi (Castelnuovo in Italian) was administered from the province's capital, Cattaro (today Kotor). After the defeat of the Venetian Republic in 1797 and turbulent times during the Napoleonic Wars, Castelnuovo/Herceg Novi became part of the Austrian empire after the Congress of Vienna (1815). The town remained part of Austria (crown land Kingdom of Dalmatia, see map of Austria-Hungary 1918). After World War I, Herceg Novi became part of Yugoslavia in 1919. During World War II, Herceg Novi was occupied by Italy (1941–1943) and then by Nazi Germany until it was liberated in October 1944. From then on Herceg Novi was part of the Yugoslav Republic of Montenegro. Montenegro declared its independence from Serbia on 3 June 2006.