Concept
Vis (Lissa) is a town on the eponymous island in the Adriatic Sea in southern Croatia. Its population was 1,934 as of 2011. The town is the seat of the eponymous Vis municipality, one of the island's two municipalities (the other being Komiža). Both belong administratively to Split-Dalmatia County. Vis, on the Illyrian coast, was established in the 4th century BCE as an Ancient Greek polis Issa, a colony of Syracuse, Sicily (which in turn was a colony of Corinth). Dionysius the Elder, the contemporary tyrant of Syracuse, founded the colony Issa to control shipping in the Adriatic Sea. Ancient Issa developed as the urban and economic center of the Dalmatian coasts, and it also served as a military base. The city established several colonies, such as Aspálathos, modern-day Split (now the largest city in Dalmatia), Epidauros (Cavtat), and Tragurion (Trogir). Issa functioned as an independent polis until the 1st century BCE, when it was conquered by the Roman Empire. Following the Roman conquest, Issa lost its significance until the late Middle Ages, when it was mentioned in several historical sources. Until 1797, the island was under the rule of the Republic of Venice. Administratively, the island of Lissa was for centuries bound to the island of Lesina, now named Hvar. Under the Treaty of Pressburg, control of the Dalmatian coast and islands passed to the short-lived Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy, with Italian the official language on the island. From 1809 until the end of the Napoleonic Wars the town was occupied by Britain, then ceded to the Austrian Empire from 1815. It maintained its Italian name of Lissa. After the end of World War I, it was under Italian rule again in the period from 1918 to 1921, according to the provisions of the 1915 Treaty of London, before it was ceded to Kingdom of Yugoslavia as part of the 1920 Treaty of Rapallo. Vis was the site of the general headquarters of Marshal Josip Broz Tito, the leader of the Yugoslav Partisan resistance movement during World War II.
