Aegean Islands

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 Aegean Sea Islands: map showing island groups.
Aegean Sea Islands: map showing island groups.

The Aegean Islands (Greek: Νησιά Αιγαίου, Nisiá Aigaíou; Turkish: Ege Adaları) are a group of islands in the Aegean Sea, with mainland Greece to the west and north and Turkey to the east; the island of Crete delimits the sea to the south. The ancient name of the Aegean Sea, Archipelago, was later applied to the islands it contains and is now used, generally, to refer to any island group.

The Greek Aegean Islands are subdivided into numerous groups (from north to south):

Almost all of the Aegean Islands currently belong to Greece, being split among nine administrative peripheries. Turkish possessions include Imbros (Gökçeada), Tenedos (Bozcaada), and eight more islets off Turkey's western coast.

Territoriality regarding the sea and some of the islands, as well as the airspace above them, is a source of ongoing dispute between Greece and Turkey and has changed over time. The Italian Aegean Islands (Italian: Isole Italiane dell-’Egeo) is sometimes used to refer to the Aegean islands conquered by Italy during the Italo-Turkish War in 1912 and annexed (through the Treaty of Lausanne) from 1923 until 1947: the Dodecanese, including Rhodes and Castelrosso (Kastelorizo).

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • Aegean Sea, The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-05.