A split is similar to the split window features of products such as Microsoft Excel and Word. You can use splits to present your data in multiple horizontal or vertical panes. It opens up an endless variety of possibilities for presenting data to the users. For example, the following image of the List control includes two splits, a horizontal and a vertical split, to create four distinct panes.

These panes, or splits, can display data in different colors and fonts. They can scroll as a unit or individually, and display different or same sets of columns. Moreover, you can use splits to prevent one or more columns or a set of rows from scrolling by creating any number of fixed columns anywhere within the list.

Whenever you use List for WinForms, you are always using a split. This is because, a list always contains at least one horizontal split, and the default values for the split properties are set so that you can ignore splits until you want to use them.