Vir

For other uses, see VIR (disambiguation).

Location of Vir in Croatia

Kaštelina castle

Vir (pronounced [v̞îːr]; Italian: Puntaduracode: it is deprecated , Dalmatian: Punta de Ura), an island on the Croatian coast of the Adriatic Sea with an area of 22 km², lies north of the city of Zadar. It is connected to the mainland via a road bridge. The main village on the island, the eponymous village of Vir, had a population of 1,608 As of 2001. There are two more villages, Lozice and Torovi. The highest peak on the island is Bandira (112 m).

History

The first known mention of Vir was in Mare Nostrum Dalmaticum (1069), a charter by king Peter Krešimir IV, where the island is referred to as Ueru (Veru), a word believed to have an ancient Mediterranean origin, meaning "pasture".

Overpopulation

Vir is notorious/famous for its overpopulation during the summer holiday season. The cause of this is the fact that there are hundreds of smaller and larger privately owned resort-houses on it. These houses arose in the 1980s after the then Yugoslav government at one point considered building a nuclear power plant on Vir because it was so barren. Because of that, the real-estate prices dropped so low that, atypically, many people could buy a parcel of land there.

Many did; the nuclear plant was never built; this resulted in excessive building of resort-houses. It is estimated that hundreds of buildings on Vir will eventually need to be torn down, because they were built without permits since they were contrary to the urban development plans. In 2006, the Ministry of Environmental Protection, Physical Planning and Construction targeted over 400 such objects for demolition. The demolition caused a minor diplomatic scandal between governments of Croatia and Hungary because many of the demolished/targeted for demolition objects were owned by Hungarian citizens.

However, during the rest of the year Vir is quite a cozy and quiet island. Infrastructure is very good, to satisfy demand during the summer rush. Outside the over inhabited areas, it has places of solitude, the Mediterranean landscape and shore.

The island is one of the biggest described endemic places of origin of house-mouse-borne lymphocytic choriomeningitis in the world, with IFA testing having found LCMV antibodies in 36% of the tested population.

External links

• Official web site