CESARICA is a Croatian audience music award for the hit of the year and is awarded to the song chosen by the audience as the most popular and successful song of the year.

The award is named after the song of the same name, which won four Porin awards and is considered by many to be the most successful Croatian song of all time. The Cesarica award recognizes the hit of the year and the most popular song chosen by the audience, and the winning song is thus called "Cesarica" until the next selection.

The selection for the song of the year includes 12 monthly hits, also chosen by the audience.

In addition to the Hit of the Year, during the Cesarica awards ceremony, awards are also given for the Hit Author of the Year, then the Cesarica Bestseller award - for the highest number of tickets sold in the past year according to official data from HDS ZAMP for commercial music events, as well as the Cesarica Digital Bestseller award - for the artist with the highest number of streams of new songs on music services during the past year. The award also encompasses listener activity, referring exclusively to paid streaming services such as Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music, and similar. These are current indicators of trends outside the usual mainstream channels like radio and television, but also a forecast of the further development of Croatian music.

The initiator of the Croatian audience music award for the hit of the year "CESARICA" is HDS – the Croatian Composers' Society, and the organizer is Unison – the Croatian Music Alliance.