Greece

Aegean Islands

Greece, Aegean Islands

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General
History
Geography

The Aegean Islands are probably the most famous and most visited places in Greece and more and more become the most easily identified image of the summer holidays in Greece. The Archipelago of the islands of the Aegean is usually described as the Greek Islands and among them there are some of the worldwide famous destinations like: Mykonos, Santorini, Rhodes, Kos, Lesvos and Skiathos. The islands of the Aegean are provided with many hotels and tourist facilities and are also famous for the restaurants serving delicious dishes of typical Mediterranean and local cuisine.

The exceptional climate of the Aegean islands has always been one of the reasons of their development through time. The summers are hot and dry with the etesian winds, known as meltemia, to blow especially in July and August and pleasantly cooling down the temperature.

The islands have been constantly inhabited since prehistoric times and they have flourished in culture and trade. The early advance of Cycladic Civilization takes place in the islands of Cyclades with significant sites in Santorini and later in Classical period in the sacred island of Delos, next to Mykonos. The islands because of the diversity of the landscape and the position of each one of them have developed different kinds of goods and products but almost all of them have established trading through sea. The Aegean islands have been occupied several times by Venetians, Crusaders, pirates, Turks, Italians and their residents have suffer oppression and economic decline. In recent years, the islanders try to reinvent their economy by tourism industry.

The Aegean Islands are the group of islands in the Aegean Sea, spreading from the mainland Greece to the west and north and Turkey to the east. Crete delimits the sea to the south and the islands of Rhodes, Karpathos and Kasos to the southeast. The Aegean Islands cover in total an area of 9.403 sq. km. with numerous uninhabited islets scattered. The Aegean Islands have nearly half of the country’s coastline and more than half of the total number of hotels in Greece. The islands are divided in administrative and geographical regions: Cyclades, Dodecanese, Eastern Aegean Islands and Sporades.