Numbers

Dodecanese

• Astypalaia
• Kalimnos
• Karpathos
• Kasos
• Kastelorizo
• Kos
• Leros
• Nisyros
• Patmos
• Rhodes
• Symi
• Tilos

The Dodecanese are a chain of islands in the Aegean Sea just off the western coast of Turkey. The name "Dodecanese" means "twelve islands" in Greek.  While there are over 150 islands in the chain only a couple of dozen are inhabited.  The name for the chain comes from the twelve largest of these islands.

From the 1500's to 1912, the chain was controlled by the Ottoman Turks, but were seized by the Italians in that year. After World War II, the Greeks regained control of the Dodecanese.

The most famous of the islands in the Dodecanese is probably Rhodes with the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, in ancient times, and the Knights Hospitaller (later the Knights of Malta after they lost the Siege of Rhodes in 1480) operating from their base on the island during the Middle Ages. In a famous incident in Ancient Roman times, recounted in Plutarch's Parallel Lives, Julius Caesar was kidnapped in his youth by pirates off the Dodecanese.

How It's Used

“In my opinion, Al Campanis was incapable of prejudice because he had faced marginalism in his own life. He was born on Kos, in the Greek chain called the Dodecanese, across the straits from Turkey. His mother had fallen in love with a dashing Italian bersagliero, a marksman soldier, and she pursued him by ship to his home city of Modena, convincing his family that she wanted nothing more than a legal name for her son.”

“Mr. Karaphillis has also invested heavily in a small waterfront hotel his family owns on Kalymnos Island, part of the Dodecanese Islands, north of Rhodes, owned by his mother's family since the early 1900s. The property, which he began renovating in 1992, is currently worth 'significantly more' than Mr. Karaphillis' investment. 'It is an investment that has a longer time horizon that my stock market investments, but it provides diversification, since it is a real asset, is in another part of the world, and it is appreciating over time.’”

“More islands have been opened up to foreign buyers with the lifting of restrictions on purchasing land and homes in areas deemed to be 'border zones'. Crete, for example, the biggest Greek island, offers a large stock of traditional village homes that are starting to come to market.

“In the Dodecanese, the chain of Greek islands strung out along Turkey's Aegean coast, would-be buyers from abroad still have to apply for a special government permit—an indication of lingering Greek fears of Turkish expansionism. But EU citizens are granted permission without delay, according to local authorities. Homes have become available on less well-known Dodecanese islands such as Symi and Patmos, which are both under the protection of the Greek archaeological service. Development is more strictly controlled.”

“I send you a postcard from the Dodecanese group of islands. Dodecanese means twelve, yet there are 13 main Dodecanese islands. Trust me, this is not a hot spot for the pedant. I'm on holiday and to be honest I am struggling with the entire concept.”

“No day now passes without migrants desperate to flee poverty and conflict illegally entering Greece, according to the interior ministry, which estimates that more than 11,000 have arrived this year. Most slip through along the country's craggy coastline…

“In a sign of the growing strain that the influx has placed on island life, the popular Dodecanese isle of Patmos unilaterally closed its docks to would-be migrants, declaring that their number had 'dangerously' exceeded its 3,000-strong population. The decision, only partly reversed this week when local authorities said immigrants could pass through the island for fingerprinting but not leave the port, had a knock-on effect on Agathonisi.

"’We are totally against the transformation of sacred Patmos into a ghetto for hungry immigrants from Africa and Asia,’ the island's union of hoteliers wrote to the centre-right prime minister, Costas Karamanlis. ‘Our island cannot be promoted as a destination for high-end tourism on the one hand, and on the other allow hundreds of illegal immigrants to wander around hungry and dirty.’”

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