The purpose of this work is to discover the meaning of urban icons in the creation of a city brand, more specifically the city brand of Zagreb. Urban icons are important elements of the brand for every city and are one of the main reasons for visiting a particular tourist location. They are elements of the urban environment that influence the creation of the image and identity of the city, and thus the creation of the city's brand itself. Nevertheless, they cannot attract tourists on their own, but need to be combined with additional content such as different events or stories about the icons, and communicate them in a proper way in the city's promotional activities. Research has been conducted in several phases. The first phase consisted of a detailed overview of the articles on the topic of urban icons and city branding along with an overview of various internet sources with emphasis on the Web pages of the tourist Boards of the selected cities mentioned in the work. The second phase included a research based on the associations to the term "Zagreb attractions" with the help of mental maps. The last phase consisted of conducting 16 in-depth interviews with respondents who live or were born in Zagreb with an intention to discover the most important urban icons in Zagreb. The survey confirmed that the city of Zagreb has a large number of urban icons, especially those from the pre-global period. It was also concluded that Zagreb still has untapped potential in terms of urban icons. This is the first paper to investigate and discover the role of urban icons of the city of Zagreb.