It lies on the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea and is spread over a central peninsula and its surroundings. An intraregional transport hub and popular tourist destination, the city is linked to the Adriatic islands and the Apennine Peninsula.
More than , tourists visit Split each year. It became a prominent settlement around when it succeeded the ancient capital of the Roman province of Dalmatia , Salona. Split became a Byzantine city. Later it drifted into the sphere of the Republic of Venice and the Kingdom of Croatia , with the Byzantines retaining nominal suzerainty. For much of the High and Late Middle Ages , Split enjoyed autonomy as a free city of the Dalmatian city-states , caught in the middle of a struggle between Venice and Croatia for control over the Dalmatian cities.
Venice eventually prevailed and during the early modern period Split remained a Venetian city, a heavily fortified outpost surrounded by Ottoman territory.
Its hinterland was won from the Ottomans in the Morean War of , and in , as Venice fell to Napoleon , the Treaty of Campo Formio rendered the city to the Habsburg monarchy. In , the Peace of Pressburg added it to the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy and in it was included in the French Empire , becoming part of the Illyrian Provinces in After being occupied in , it was eventually granted to the Austrian Empire following the Congress of Vienna , where the city remained a part of the Austrian Kingdom of Dalmatia until the fall of Austria-Hungary in and the formation of Yugoslavia.
It was then re-occupied by Germany , which granted it to its puppet Independent State of Croatia. The city was liberated again by the Partisans in , and was included in the post-war Socialist Yugoslavia , as part of its republic of Croatia. After the Roman conquest , the name became Spalatum or Aspalatum in Latin , which in the Middle Ages evolved into Aspalathum , Spalathum , Spalatrum and Spalatro in the Dalmatian language of the city's Romance population.
