Vis town
The town of Vis is located in the north-eastem part of the island Vis in the bottom of a well protected bay. It developed from the former settlements Kut and Luka, which became one entity in the 16th century by the building of the church Gospa od Spilica. The villages from the eastem side of the island such as: Zenka, Milna, Bargujac, Podstrazje, Podselje, Plisko Polje and Marine Zemlje gravitate to the town. Since the World War II the whole island had been a military area. The tourism on Vis began to develop significantly with the demilitarisation of the island at the beginning of the war (1991-1995) in Croatia. So, it has been only 15 years ago that both the island and its town opened for the visit of tourists. The remains of the military objects in the northwest and northeast part of the Bay of Vis are the witnesses of the srny of the Yugoslav Army. During the last hundred years a... part of the population emigrated in the search for better living conditions. There are only about 2000 people living in the town of Vis, and around 3500 on the whole island. Many visitors, and especially the yachtsmen, are coming more and more to Vis. In every moment you can see changes in life-style, but at the same time Vis has kept the old, irresistible Mediterranean charm and life without stress and trouble.
The fortresses and the stany piles testify to the thousand-year-old settlement on Vis, and the remains of a theatre built into the foundations of the Franciscan monastery on the peninsula Prirovo, antique therms or the Hellenistic cemetery, confirm that Vis is one of the oldest urban centres in Croatia. The town Vis, the antique Issa, was founded by the tyrant of Syracuse Dionisius the older about 397 B.C. as a base for the Greek colonization of the Adriatic Sea. The settlement of Dionisius had been located in the part of the town, which is now called Gradina and on the peninsula of Prirovu. In the Hellenistic time Vis had been so powerful that it established its own colonies on the location of the today towns of Trogir, Stobrec and Lumbarde on Korcula. Many archaeological remains testify to the development of Vis.
