Jelsa

Although this piece is filed under Split, Jelsa is not in Split at all — it's a town on the north coast of Hvar island, sitting roughly in the middle of Hvar's northern shoreline, administratively its own municipality within Split-Dalmatia County.

Jelsa's roots go back to a fortified predecessor recorded as Civitas Vetus Ielsae in the 1331 Statute of Hvar, but the town in its current form developed in the 14th century as the port for the inland village of Pitve. A later addition to the statute, from 1424, already praised the site for its good fresh water — and Jelsa remains, to this day, the only place on Hvar with an abundant natural freshwater supply, a feature that shaped its early growth. By the 19th century it had become one of the most important maritime, shipbuilding and trading centres on the Adriatic, a boom period that also carried a strong wine export trade before phylloxera wiped out much of the island's vineyards toward the century's end.

That rise and fall shows clearly in the population figures: Jelsa counted 6,570 residents in 1900, its historical peak. Emigration and the decline of shipping and viticulture eroded that number through the 20th century, and the 2021 census recorded 3,501 people across the whole municipality, with about 1,753 living in the town itself.

The town sits in a sheltered bay ringed by pine-covered slopes climbing toward Hvar's central ridge, close to the UNESCO-listed Stari Grad Plain. Organised tourism here dates back to 1868, and Jelsa's oldest hotel opened in 1911 — early enough that the town was welcoming travellers well before the Adriatic became a mass destination. Composer Antun Dobronić, born in Jelsa in 1878, remains its best-known cultural figure.

Jelsa can be reached from Split by fast ferry via Bol, on Brač, or by the car-ferry route through Stari Grad, and its working harbour and unhurried waterfront make it worth a visit if you're chartering a gulet from Split and sailing the Hvar coastline.