Hvar

from the Castle
on Hvar
on Hvar

Hvar (old names Pharos/Lesina) is a Croatian island in the Adriatic Sea, located off the Dalmatian coast. The island is spread out from west to east to around 80 km.

Hvar is separated from the island of Brač by the Hvar Channel (Hvarski kanal), from Vis by the Vis Channel, from Korčula; by the Korčula Channel, from Pelješac; by the Neretva Channel, while the east cape of the island is located just three nautical miles away from the mainland.

The major divisions of the island include:

• the town of Hvar (population 4,138 in 2001), the site of the first public theatre in Europe, opened in 1612
• the town of Stari Grad, located on the north part of the island (population 2,817 in 2001), the site of one of the first human settlements on the Adriatic islands during the antiquity
• Jelsa is a town in the central-northern part of the island (population 3,672 in 2001)
• Plame, the eastern part of the island, is a thin slice of land and the island is narrower towards the north. The small town of Sućuraj; (population 387 in 2001), more than 2,300 years old, is located on the east cape of the island.

Along the southern coast of the island there are several more smaller islands, notably the Paklenski otoci in the west and the Šćedro island in the south.

People of Hvar mostly live from fishing and tourism. It has a very mild Mediterranean climate, beautiful beaches and Meditarranean vegetation that attracts tourists.

Hvar is administratively part of the Split-Dalmatia county of Croatia.

Table of contents

1 History 2 Names of the island 3 External links

History

In the 4th century BC the people of Pharos defeated Jasadini warriors and their allies. Their victory over much larger forces is immortalized an inscription, one of the oldest known inscriptions of Croatia.

The Hvar Culture lasted from 3500 to 2500 BC.

Venetian sailors saw the island while sailing towards the Neretva Channel and were threatened by pirates from the island.

Hvar is important to the history of Croatia as it was one of the centers of Croatian literature during the Renaissance, with writers such as Petar Hektorović and Hanibal Lucić.

Ivan Vučetić, the man who perfected dactyloscopy on the turn of the 20th century, came from Hvar island.

Names of the island

Originally known as Pharos after the Aegean island of Paros, the island was Greek and the lighthouse of the island was also named Pharos. The Greek poet Apollonius of Rhodes referred to the island as "Piteyeia" in the 3rd century BC. He came up with the name from either the Greek word "pitys", meaning spruce, or from the ancient Illyrian village of Pitve in the central part of the island.

Under the Roman rule (in the province of Dalmatia), it was known as Pharia and later Fara. In the early Middle Ages, the Croats settled the island and named it Hvar, replacing the old Slavic consonant "f" with "hv", but the island was still ruled by the Romance-speaking population of Dalmatia. Croatian influence convinced the resident Roman population to once again change the official name to Quarra.

Since the late 11th century the Italians called it Lesina, which meant "forest" (an accurate description of the island at the time), or in Venetian Republic, Liesena. The Italian name for it, Lesina, remained in official use until the 19th century.

External links

• Official site of Hvar Island
• The Island of Hvar
• The town of Sucuraj on Hvar
• Adriatic Islands Project: Contact, commerce and colonisation 6000 BC - AD 600

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