The Most Beautiful Places in Split-Dalmatia
6 places · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful places in Split-Dalmatia are Diocletian's Palace, Zlatni Rat and Trogir Cathedral. The list covers 6 places. Last updated 13 October 2026.
Split-Dalmatia is the heart of the Dalmatian coast, where the limestone Dinaric Alps meet the Adriatic and its long chain of islands. Karst rock gives the region its clear water, sea caves and sinkholes, while two thousand years of Roman, Venetian and Croatian history left towns built of pale stone. Few stretches of the Mediterranean hold so much ancient architecture alongside such transparent sea.
In Split, Diocletian's Palace is the retirement residence of a Roman emperor built around 300 AD, and its walls still enclose a living town; the emperor's mausoleum became the city's cathedral. Nearby, the island town of Trogir has the Cathedral of St Lawrence, famous for its Romanesque portal carved by Master Radovan in 1240, with Adam and Eve standing on lions.
The islands bring the sea into focus. On Brač, Zlatni Rat is a pebble spit that reaches out from the shore, its tip shifting with wind and currents. Off Vis, the Blue Grotto on Biševo glows with light that enters underwater and colours the cave a silvery blue. Stiniva, also on Vis, is a pebble cove almost enclosed by high cliffs, open to the sea through a narrow gap. Inland, near Imotski, the Red Lake fills one of the largest sinkholes in the world, its cliffs tinted reddish brown by iron oxides.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Diocletian's Palace | Palace | ✓ |
| 2 | Zlatni Rat | Beach | |
| 3 | Trogir Cathedral | Cathedral | |
| 4 | Red Lake (Imotski) | Doline | |
| 5 | Blue Grotto, Biševo | Show cave | |
| 6 | Stiniva | Beach |
01 Diocletian's Palace
Dioklecijanova palača
Croatia · 2.9 km from Split43.508° N 16.438° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by neufal54 from Pixabay Diocletian, the emperor who divided power among four rulers and then did something rare for a Roman emperor — abdicated, in 305 — chose a peninsula on the Dalmatian coast for his retirement, a few kilometres from Salona, the provincial capital.
Did you know? The four main gates are known as the Golden, Silver, Iron and Bronze Gates, facing north, east, west and the sea.
02 Zlatni Rat
Zlatni rat
Croatia · 32.3 km from Split43.256° N 16.634° E
Miran Hojnik · CC BY 2.0 Zlatni Rat, the "Golden Cape", is a tongue of fine pebbles that runs out from the southern coast of the island of Brač into the Hvar Channel, about two kilometres west of the harbour town of Bol.
Did you know? The sea on the western side is usually the warmer one, even though that side takes most of the afternoon wind and waves.
03 Trogir Cathedral
Trogirska katedrala
Croatia · 17.7 km from Split43.517° N 16.251° E
VitVit · CC BY-SA 4.0 The great west door of Trogir Cathedral is signed: in 1240 a local sculptor named Radovan carved his name in the lunette, together with an inscription naming him the best in his craft.
Did you know? The octagonal pulpit rests on columns with Romanesque capitals, partly gilded.
04 Red Lake (Imotski)
Crveno jezero
Croatia43.455° N 17.198° E
Peter1936F · CC BY-SA 4.0 The Red Lake is not so much a lake as a hole in the earth with water at the bottom. It fills a vast collapse sinkhole on the edge of Imotski in inland Dalmatia, where the roof of an enormous cave gave way and left a shaft with sheer walls.
Did you know? Because the shaft is so hard to reach, the first depth soundings were taken only in 1955, by Milivoj Petrik.
05 Blue Grotto, Biševo
Modra špilja
Croatia42.980° N 16.021° E
Pierre-Selim Huard · CC BY 4.0 On the east side of Biševo, a small island off Vis in the outer Dalmatian archipelago, a sea cave lights up blue for about an hour around midday.
Did you know? The cave is protected in Croatia as a geomorphological monument of nature, a textbook example of a karst sea cave.
06 Stiniva
Croatia43.018° N 16.171° E
dronepicr · CC BY 2.0 Stiniva is a hidden cove on the south coast of the Croatian island of Vis, closed off from the open Adriatic by two vertical limestone walls about thirty metres high that stand only some four metres apart.
Did you know? The Vis archipelago also includes the volcanic islet of Brusnik, whose name comes from the whetstones once made from its rock.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful places in Split-Dalmatia?
- On our list, Diocletian's Palace ranks first, followed by Zlatni Rat and Trogir Cathedral.
- Is Diocletian's Palace still lived in?
- Yes. After the Roman era, people settled within the palace walls, and today shops, homes and restaurants occupy its streets. The palace and the historic centre of Split have been a World Heritage Site since 1979.
- Why does Zlatni Rat change shape?
- Zlatni Rat is a spit of fine pebbles, and its tip is pushed one way or the other by the prevailing winds and sea currents, so its outline shifts over time.
- Why is the Blue Grotto on Biševo blue?
- Sunlight enters the cave through an underwater opening and is reflected off the white limestone seabed, filling the grotto with blue light. The effect is strongest around midday.
- What kinds of places are there to see in Split-Dalmatia?
- In our collection, the places in Split-Dalmatia are most often beaches (2), caves (1), show caves (1) and sinkholes (1).
- How many places are on this list in Split-Dalmatia?
- The list covers 6 places.