Seventeen state routes are registered to Split and central Dalmatia, but only ten of them sail from Split itself. The other seven leave from Trogir, Drvenik, Ploče, Makarska or Orebić, and reaching one of those is a drive down the coast road rather than a walk to the quay.
The terminal is in the city, and that is the whole map
Split is unusual among European ports in that the ferry berths, the coach station and the railway station sit together on the harbour front, directly against the old town. There is no transfer between arriving in the city and boarding a boat. That single piece of geography is why so many itineraries are built around Split, and why a Split map is really a map of what leaves the quay.
What leaves the quay is 23 scheduled services: 10 state lines with a public service obligation and 13 commercial catamarans that exist for the summer. That is the largest concentration in the register. What the headline figure hides is the seven state routes in the same administrative region that do not come near the city at all.
| Line | Vessel | Mainland end | Registered route |
|---|---|---|---|
| 602 | Car ferry | Split | Vis – Split |
| 604 | Car ferry | Split | Lastovo/Ubli – Vela Luka – Hvar – Split |
| 631 | Car ferry | Split | Supetar – Split |
| 635 | Car ferry | Split | Stari Grad – Split |
| 636 | Car ferry | Split | Rogač – Split |
| 9601 | Catamaran | Split | Milna – Rogač – Sutivan – Split |
| 9602 | Catamaran | Split | Vis – Hvar – Milna – Split |
| 9603 | Catamaran | Split | Jelsa – Stari Grad – Bol – Split |
| 9604 | Catamaran | Split | Lastovo/Ubli – Vela Luka – Hvar – Split |
| 9608 | Catamaran | Split | Korčula – Prigradica – Hvar – Split |
| 606 | Car ferry | Trogir (Soline) | Drvenik Veliki – Drvenik Mali – Trogir/Soline |
| 612 | Catamaran | Komiža, on Vis | Komiža – Biševo |
| 614 | Catamaran | Orebić (Pelješac) | Orebić – Korčula |
| 632 | Car ferry | Drvenik | Sućuraj – Drvenik |
| 633 | Car ferry | Ploče | Ploče – Trpanj |
| 634 | Car ferry | Orebić (Pelješac) | Korčula/Dominče – Orebić |
| 638 | Car ferry | Makarska | Sumartin – Makarska |
Read the bottom half of that table as a driving list. Line 632 crosses from Drvenik to Sućuraj at the eastern tip of Hvar; line 633 runs Ploče to Trpanj on Pelješac; line 638 crosses Makarska to Sumartin on Brač; line 634 links Orebić with Korčula. Every one of them is a genuine state car ferry and none of them is any use to somebody standing on the Split waterfront without a vehicle.
The port on the ticket is not always the town on the map
The second thing a Split map has to do is separate harbour names from town names, because the register uses the harbour and the accommodation booking uses the town. Four of these mismatches account for most of the trouble on this stretch of coast.
- Line 635 sails to Stari Grad, which is on Hvar but is not Hvar town. Of the sixteen services linking Split with the island, only one vehicle line docks at Hvar town itself.
- Line 631 sails to Supetar on the north coast of Brač. Bol, on the south coast, has no vehicle service at all — the ridge between them is the 780-metre Vidova gora.
- Line 634 berths at Dominče, roughly 3 km from Korčula town and not in the town harbour.
- Lines 604 and 9604 finish at Ubli, which is the port for Lastovo, not a place most people have booked a bed in.
None of that is obscure and all of it is on the tickets. It causes trouble because the map in most visitors’ heads has one dot per island. The register has one entry per harbour, and on the larger islands the harbours are an hour apart by road.
10 of 17
state routes in the central Dalmatian region actually sail from Split — the rest start from another mainland port
The practical use of that figure is in judging how much a hire car buys you here. From the city itself, 5 of the 10 state lines take a vehicle. Add the car to the coast road and the seven off-city routes open up as well, which is a real gain in reach and a real loss in speed, because every one of them is a slow crossing and every catamaran is closed to you.
Booking a Split hotel to be near a boat you are not taking
The harbour-front position is worth paying for if the trip is built on the city’s own lines: the catamarans to Hvar, Vis, Brač and Korčula, and the car ferries to Supetar, Stari Grad, Rogač and Vis. It is worth nothing at all if the crossing you have booked is Makarska to Sumartin or Ploče to Trpanj.
The cost is a morning. Those crossings are down the coast road from Split, and the return leg has to be timed against the last sailing rather than against the last boat out of the city. If the plan involves one of the seven off-city ferries, the sensible base is the mainland port that ferry leaves from, not the Split waterfront.
The rest of the Split map follows from the shape of the region. The city faces Brač and Šolta across a narrow channel and everything else is a longer run southeast down the chain toward Hvar, Vis, Korčula and Lastovo. There is no scheduled service north from Split to the Šibenik or Zadar islands: those are different gateway groups, and the national network does not join them by sea.
Which gives a simple rule for reading any Split itinerary. Anything southeast of the city along the chain is a boat day and can be booked as one. Anything north of it, or inland, is a road day, and the register will not help with it — because it does not contain it.
What do you need to work out next?
The quay and the region are two different maps. These come next.
Where to stay
Is the harbour front worth the premium?
Ten state lines sail from the city; seven more leave from other ports.
Getting around
What is reachable and back in a day?
Twenty-three services touch Split and thirteen are summer-only.
When to go
When does the commercial half stop?
Thirteen of Split’s services carry no public service obligation.
Planning
Which Hvar port does my boat use?
Line 635 lands at Stari Grad, not at Hvar town.
Ferry data: Agencija za obalni linijski pomorski promet (ZOLPP), 2026 state coastal line register and per-line timetables.