With the size of 394,6 km2, Brač is the most spacious island in Dalmatia. It is anchored like a huge ship in the picturesque archipelago of the Dalmatian islands. Brač today has some twenty settlements of which the most well known is Bol.
In many ways, Bol is a special settlement. It is the first and the oldest island town on the coast. It chose its position not alike other coastal settlements on amphitheatrical slopes of sheltered bays, but is alone and isolated on the south, open coast covered with pebbles, like a string of pearls.
Above Bol is a mountain range of Bolska kruna, the Illyrian hill-fort Kostilo and Vidova gora, the roof of Adriatic.
Name Bol originates from Latin word vallum, meaning „rampart", "earthy settlement". Latin word vallum has the same meaning as old Croatian meaning of the world coast (="trench", "rampart"). The name has most probably originated from a combination of the Roman appellative vallum and Slavic word for coast.
As a locality, Bol was mentioned for the first time in 1184 in Povaljska listina made in the so-called Diocese (Dominican monastery). As a settlement, Bol was first mentioned on 10 October 1475 in the deed of gift by which Duke Zacharia donated the peninsula Glavica to the Dominicans.