Dionysius I of Syracuse
The Adriatic islands have been populated at least since the time of Ancient Greece. For example, Hvar was already populated between 3500 BC and 2500 BC and Dionysius I of Syracuse founded a colony on Hvar and Vis in the 4th century BC. The combined island population reached its peak in 1921, at 173,503 inhabitants, and went into steady decline in the following decades, dropping to pre-1850s level by 1981. The depopulation trend was reversed only in the 1990s, with the 2001 census registering a population of 122,418, up from 110,953 in 1991.