Dodecanese

Dodecanese, also Dodecanesus, island group, southeastern Greece, in the Aegean Sea, between the southwestern coast of Turkey and Crete (Kríti). Despite its name (Greek, “twelve islands”), the group consists of about 50 islands and islets. They form a department of Greece, the greater part of which is known as the Southern Sporades (see Sporades), with a total land area of 2,660 sq km (1,030 sq mi). Only 14 of the islands are permanently inhabited. Of these, the most important are Rhodes, Kos, and Kárpathos. Rhodes, on which Rhodes (or Ródhos), capital of the group, is located, has the largest area and population of the islands. The other inhabited islands are Kálimnos, Léros, Nísiros, Pátmos, Kastellórizon, Astipálaia, Kásos, Khálki, Tílos, and Lípsos. Population (1981) 145,071.

Tourism is of major economic significance to the islands. There is some farming, producing crops such as tobacco, olives, grapes, oranges, and other fruits and vegetables. Sponge fishing is locally important.

Several islands of the Dodecanese, especially Rhodes, were settled by the ancient Greeks and figured prominently in Hellenic civilization for many centuries. The islands subsequently became Roman dominions. Following the division of the Roman Empire, they belonged to the Byzantine Empire. In 1522 the Dodecanese were seized by the Ottoman Empire, which retained control until the successful invasion of Rhodes in 1912 by the armed forces of Italy. During World War II, in 1943, German troops occupied the Dodecanese; in May 1945 the islands were relinquished to a British force. The island group was formally ceded to Greece in 1947.