The Municipality of Gradac is located at the furthest southeast of the Splitsko-Dalmatinska County. Settlements of Drvenik, Zaostrog, Podaca, Brist and Gradac are situated in the area from Vira cove in the west to Luka cove in the southwest. 3,615 inhabitants live in those settlements, 1,524 in Gradac; 453 in Brist; 500 in Drvenik; 716 in Podaca and 372 inhabitants in Zaostrog. The Municipality centre, Gradac, was named after a fort called Gradac. According to the poet Father Andrija Kačić Miošić (born 300 years ago in Brist) two of the Kačić family from Vrane by Zadar arrived to the Upper Littoral “where they built a fort and called it Gradac”. Michele Malipiero, Venetian supervisor of Makarska, from his residence in Sućurje on the island of Hvar (where he hid in fear of the Turks) wrote on 23 March 1649 to Father P. Kačić calling for the gathering of all the chiefs and people of Makarska on the first Thursday “nel luoco di Gradaza”, and that is the oldest memory of the coastal Gradac. The old Gradac was far from the sea. Constantine Porphyrogenet mentioned that old settlement between the hills of Grabovica and St. Pascal under the name “he Labinetza”, and other sources, up to the 17th century, under the name of Lapčan or Lapčanj. Gradac is located at the foot of the Mountain Rilić slopes; at the place that, according to historians, used to be a travel stop on the Roman road from Salona to Narona in the 4th century. Archaeological finds from the site Crkvine prove that assumption. There were found monumental walls, sarcophagi and Roman coins from the 1st to 5th century. Remains of the old fort can be seen on the slopes of the hill, and in the hamlet of Čisla there is a preserved two-story tower with loopholes, built in 1661 for defence against the Turks. There is an old graveyard next to the tower as well as the remains of a small baroque church. That was probably the site of a battle in 1666 that resulted in the defeat of the Turks. Venetian cartographer Josip Santini drew that event, and that is the oldest known picture of Gradac and surrounding area. On that illustration a tower in flames is in the background, the tower this place was named after. Towers and hill forts are scattered over the entire Municipality area. Father Andrija Kačić Miošić in his “Pjesmarica” (Book of Poems) mentions the tower of Kostanić in Drvenik, a village scattered between the slopes of Rilić Mountain and the sea. Drvenik was named after a wood (Cro. drvo). Folk tradition says that Drvenik was overgrown in woods so it was possible for a man to go from the sea to the peak of the Drvenicke stine (Rocks of Drvenik) simply by climbing the trees, from branch to branch. There is a preserved church of St. Jerome (Sv. Jere pod Plinom) in the old settlement, whose oldest part is from the 15th century. The new settlement of Drvenik developed by the sea, in two coves, after the earthquake in 1962. Today, Drvenik is important as a tourist destination, but also as a car ferry landing on the service to Sućurje on the island of Hvar. The old settlement of Zaostrog was in the past also located high under the rocks, far from the sea. Since the 17th century its inhabitants have been settling the surrounding area of the Franciscan Monastery of St. Mary (16th to 17th century), one of the most important centres of cultural life of Makarska Littoral during the past centuries. The Monastery is today famous for its rich library, art collections and ethnographic treasure and a collection of stone fragments. The old settlement was mentioned for the first time in Turkish and Croatian languages in 1494 by Hamza, kadi of Drina. The title consisted of two words: preposition za (for) and noun Ostrog, name of an old Neretva town, which was mentioned in the middle of the 10th century by Constantine Porphyrogenet. The legend says that Ostrog was located in a cove at the foot of Viter hill (770 m); even today people call it Ostrog. The settlement by the sea particularly developed after the earthquake and the construction of the Adriatic Tourist Road in 1964. A tower has also marked the old settlement of Podaca at the foot of Viter hill. It is one kilometre distant from the sea, round shape and built in the 17th century for defence against the Turks. That place was mentioned for the first time in 1571 in the Gradac, TB Gradac famous Mocenig’s resolution and spelt according to the rules of the Italian orthography “Podaza”. The name comes from pod – a terrace shaped area it was built on. The village is rather old and has a preserved early Croatian church of St. Ivan (John), pious endowment of Kačić family from the 11th– 12th century. A wealthy townsman, Ivan Cvitanović-Tomić, one of the constructors of the Suez Canal, had the church-tower built in 1888. The old settlement was abandoned after the earthquake, and the new developed by the sea. New settlement of Brist also began developing by the sea between Podaca and Gradac after the 1962 earthquake. The old settlement at the foot of Biokovo cliffs was abandoned in the end of the 19th century. Inhabited since prehistory, this place is famous as a birth town of Andrija Kačić Miošić, one of the greatest Croatian poets (1704–1760). It was named after a particular type of elm-tree (Cro. brijest), in the ikavian dialect brist. The name of Brist was written down for the first time in the already mentioned Mocenig’s resolution from 1571. In the old settlement there are preserved ruins of an old baroque church of St. Margaret and a birth house of the poet Andrija Kačić Miošić. In the centre of the new village is a parish church of St. Margaret (1870). Tourism began developing in the Municipality of Gradac after the First World War.