Four-kilometre long Pilssala, which lies between Lielupe and its branch, the Driksa, is the location of Jelgava Palace. The lavish baroque palace was designed by Russian court architect Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli. Its construction began in 1738. Fires and frequent reconstruction have meant changes to the palace’s original layout and interior, but the original facade has survived. Today the palace is home to Latvia’s University of Agriculture. In the northern part of the island, wild horses graze on flood plain meadows in a national nature reserve. The Lielupe floodplain meadows are a valuable habitat and an important bird-nesting site with rare and protected bird and plant species.  

• In the 13th century, a Livonian Order castle was built on the island. In 1737, Ernst Johann von Biron, the Duke of Courland, decided to blow up the old castle and replace it with a majestic baroque building.
• Jelgava Palace is the largest palace in the Baltics.
• When designing Jelgava Palace, Rastrelli introduced a number of unusual solutions for the time: the facade is decorated with ornamental cast iron mouldings, among the earliest metal decor in European architecture, the roofs are flat and made of tinned metal, not previously used in Latvian architecture.
• The family vault of the Dukes of Courland is located at the south-eastern corner of the palace.