Kos island, Dodecanese islands, Greece, the town of Kos
Kos is a Greek island, part of the Dodecanese island chain in the southeastern Aegean Sea, off the Anatolian coast of Turkey. Kos is the third largest island of the Dodecanese by area, after Rhodes and Karpathos; it has a population of 33,388, making it the second most populous of the Dodecanese, after Rhodes. Tourism is the main industry in Kos, the island's beaches being the primary attraction. The main port and population centre on the island, Kos town, is also the tourist and cultural centre, with whitewashed buildings including many hotels, restaurants and a number of nightclubs forming the Kos town "barstreet". The seaside village of Kardamena is a popular resort for young holidaymakers (primarily from the United Kingdom and Scandinavia) and has a large number of bars and nightclubs. Farming is the second principal occupation, with the main crops being grapes, almonds, figs, olives, and tomatoes, along with wheat and corn. In Homer's Iliad, a contingent of Koans fought for the Greeks in the Trojan War. In the Hellenistic period, Kos attained the zenith of its prosperity. Its alliance was valued by the Ptolemaic kings of Egypt, who used it as a naval outpost to oversee the Aegean. Following the Fourth Crusade, Kos passed under Genoese control, although it was retaken in ca. 1224 and kept for a while by the Empire of Nicaea. In the 1320s, Kos nominally formed part of the realm of Martino Zaccaria, but was most likely in the hands of Turkish corsairs until ca. 1337, when the Knights Hospitaller took over the island. The last Hospitaller governor of the island was Piero de Ponte. The Ottoman Empire captured the island in early Ottomans ruled Kos for almost 400 years, until it was transferred to the Kingdom of Italy in 1912 after the Italo-Turkish Italians developed the infrastructures of the island, after the earthquake of 1933. It was controlled by Italian troops until the Italian surrender in 1943. It became a protectorate of the UK until 1947
Size: 2592px × 3872px
Location: Kos island, Dodecanese islands, Greece, the town of Kos
Photo credit: © Andreas Gkanatsios / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
Keywords: aegean, ancient, antiquity, architecture, builder, builders, building, chimney, christian, christianity, church, columns, construction, dodecanese, door, faith, greece, greek, hellas, hellenic, historical, history, house, houses, island, islands, italian, kos, marble, natural, nature, orthodox, pathway, pilgrimage, religion, religious, road, ruins, sea, stone, stone-, stonemason, street, tourism, touristic, tradition, traditional, trekking
