SPLIT
About Split
The story of Split has been going on for 17 centuries, ever since the Roman Emperor Diocletian decided to build a palace on this peninsula near the great Roman city of Salona, where he would spend the last years of his life in peace. In those 1700 years, the Palace slowly became and became a city, which today attracts with its rich tradition, magnificent history, beauty of natural and cultural heritage.
Diocletian's Palace and the entire historic center of Split are on the UNESCO World Heritage List - and since 1979, not only because of the extraordinary preservation of the Palace itself, but at least equally because the Palace and its city (or the city and its Palace, as you like) continue to live a full life.
Split is much more than a magnificent architectural backdrop. It is a city where it is possible to enjoy top gastronomy and wines, find numerous cultural events such as film and theater festivals, exhibitions, top museums and concerts, a city that offers entertainment from numerous clubs and bars through street events to festivals such as Ultra Europe, which is visited every year by up to 100 thousand young people from about a hundred countries around the world. Split, with its dozens of Olympic and other medal winners, also has a sporting tradition like few other cities of its size in the world.
Explore
Start from the most important sights, i.e. Diocletian's Palace and the city center, including the most important city promenade Riva. The second "ring" includes Marjan and, depending on the weather, one of the city's beaches, such as Bačvice, famous for "Picigin", a unique game created in that very place.
Start your walk from the model of the historic center on the Riva, and the panel depicting the reconstructed Diocletian's Palace. Take a walk along the Riva to the west, past numerous cafes and shops, enjoying the view of the southern façade of the Palace and the city port. The path will then take you through city squares such as Fruit or People's Square, and further towards the northern wall of the Palace, the best preserved. The statue of Gregory of Nin, the work of the great Croatian sculptor Ivan Meštrović, the magnificent Golden Gate, which in Roman times led to Salona, the largest Roman city on the eastern coast of the Adriatic, and which was only allowed to be used by Emperor Diocletian and his family, the Temple of Jupiter, the Vestibule, the Peristyle, the Cathedral of St. Domnius, the patron saint of the city and for many other sights that this city offers, one day will not be enough for you. We must not forget to mention the rich gastronomic offer, and in recent years, this interesting city has imposed itself as a top destination for music festival lovers.
Split today
Split is the second largest and most important city in the Republic of Croatia and the strongest regional center on the eastern coast of the Adriatic. According to the last census, from 2011, Split has 178,192 inhabitants, which is almost 40 percent of the population of Split-Dalmatia County (455,242 inhabitants), or slightly more than 4 percent of the total population of the Republic of Croatia (4,290,612 inhabitants).
Split, as a Dalmatian metropolis and agglomeration center, cultural, economic, university and sports center, has great spatial, professional, scientific and production potentials that, along with the use of funds from European funds, represent the backbone of the future development of the city, which should also become the locomotive of the region's development. In the function of development, the city has also profiled a stronger activity on the international level in the function of attracting foreign investors, who are expected to be involved in the implementation of the planned city projects, the value of which is measured in hundreds of millions of euros. In this regard, there is a clear commitment to the strong development of the city as a tourist destination, with a focus on cultural and historical heritage and new projects that are already attracting tens of thousands of new tourists, the results of which can already be seen in the past and this year when Split broke all records in attendance in the season.
Tourism
Split has become an increasingly popular tourist destination in recent years. According to data from ECM, an organization that brings together about 120 large tourist cities in Europe, Split had the highest annual percentage of growth in the number of tourist arrivals and overnight stays. It has become a tourist hit destination, especially among young people, and has become the tourist champion of Croatia. In the first 9 months of 2014, 863 thousand overnight stays were realized, which is 33,000 more than in 2013. The average stay of tourists in Split is 3.5 days. Most of them come from Germany. They are followed by the British, French and Italians, then guests from the USA and Australia. With almost a million overnight stays per year, Split has stepped onto the European and world tourist stage of sought-after destinations. With the completion of the started and the construction of new hotel capacities, Split will position itself more strongly in the markets of congress, sports, recreational and cultural tourism. Thus, in about 10 years, it could reach 2 million overnight stays. For the decoration of the city, as well as for the overall tourist offer, Split has received a number of the most important domestic and international awards from tourist, economic and other associations.
In terms of traffic, Split is still the most important junction, and a new quality came with the construction of the highway to Zagreb. The importance of Split's position at the intersection of all types of transport (ship, road, rail and air) is confirmed by the fact that the airport is breaking historical records in the number of passengers, and the city port with a traffic of over four million passengers is the third port in the Mediterranean.
