Punat, located on the east coast of the more than 3 km long and 2 km wide Punat valley, is considered one of Krk’s more recent villages. However, this belief is connected to the fact that studies and more detailed reports regarding this area only began around a hundred years ago. Earlier it was part of the city of Krk, and the area of Vrbnik almost reached the village of Punat.

However the inhabitants have been settled here continuously since prehistoric times.
Traces of settlement date back in prehistory through the Iliric tribes, the Greeks and the Romans. According to legend, during the Roman period a bridge passed through the narrow entrance to the Punat valley heading to the city of Krk. Supposedly, according to a variety of records, inhabitants from the Punat area were more precisely settled by the Krk noblemen, in order to protect the approach to the bridge and to the Punat valley.

During the historical events on this area, Punat has shared the other villages’ destiny, and besides farming and cattle breeding, the inhabitants were, occupied with fishing and ship building, and the Austro-Croatian steamship society was founded here in 1906 whose first steam ship, the Frankopan, maintained the route from the village to the mainland. 

Today Punat is one of the largest nautical centres in Croatia, and it is also the island’s olive-growing centre. To talk about Punat, and not to mention the small island of Košljun, is unimaginable. Punat and Košljun have being connected for centuries, the lives of the Franciscan friars and the people from Punat are mutually intertwined. 

So every visitor is sure to want to visit the island of Košljun which is served by “barkajoli” that continuously travel the 10 minutes journey from Punat to Košljun and back again.
Although the distance from Punat is only 750 meters and it has been connected to it for centuries, the island of Košljun belongs to the city of Krk according to the cadastral map.

The size of the small island with its rich vegetation is slightly larger than a thousand meters, its surface is 68 square metres, and its highest point is located 6 metres above sea level. On this relatively small surface 540 plant and mushroom species (almost half of those registered in whole of Great Britain) are registered here. The Franciscan Monastery is located on the island of Košljun where the friars, over the centuries, have conserved a number of values.