Hvar is the site of the first public theatre in Europe, opened in 1612.

The regular ferry Split-Hvar-Korčula-Dubrovnik stops at the port.
The name of the island is without doubt Greek in origin, from Pharos (lighthouse). From it the Romans derived the name Pharia. The Dalmatian Romans then derived from this Fara, and the newly settled Croats in the early Middle Ages changed this to Hvar, as the old Slavonic consonant f was subsumed by the consonant group hv. The Dalmatian Romans, under the influence of Croatian pronunciation in the medieval documents spelt the name as Quara or Quarra.

At the end of the 11th century the Italians called it Lesina, or in Venetian dialect Liesena or Liesna. This was derived from an old Croatian adjective meaning "forest", which actually corresponded to the appearance of the island at the time of the Neretljani. The eastern part of the island, Plame, has the shape of a cutting edge which gets narrower towards "the top of Hvar" and corresponds well to the medieval Venetian name Liesna which means "awl". This is what it looked like to the Venetian seamen who sailed past the island on their way to the Neretva Channel, near the massif of Krajina where threatening pirates were waiting in their lairs.