Greek dish and Mythos beer at a restaurant on the cliff-top town of Fira on the Island of Santorini in the Aegean Sea, Greece
Santorini, classically Thera, and officially Thira, is an island in the southern Aegean Sea, 120 miles southeast from Greece's mainland. It is the largest island of a small, circular archipelago which bears the same name and is the remnant of a volcanic caldera. It forms the southernmost member of the Cyclades group of islands, with an area of approximately 28 sq miles and a 2011 census population of 15,550. Santorini is essentially what remains after an enormous volcanic explosion that destroyed the earliest settlements on a formerly single island, and created the current geological caldera. A giant central, rectangular lagoon, which measures about by miles, is surrounded by 980 foot high, steep cliffs on three sides. The main island slopes downward to the Aegean Sea. On the fourth side, the lagoon is separated from the sea by another much smaller island called Therasia; the lagoon is connected to the sea in two places, in the northwest and southwest. The caldera being 400m deep makes it possible for all but the largest ships to anchor anywhere in the protected bay. The capital, Fira, clings to the top of the cliff looking down on the lagoon. It is the most active volcanic centre in the South Aegean Volcanic Arc, though what remains today is chiefly a water-filled caldera. The island is the site of one of the largest volcanic eruptions in recorded history: the Minoan eruption (sometimes called the Thera eruption), which occurred some 3600 years ago at the height of the Minoan civilization. The eruption left a large caldera surrounded by volcanic ash deposits hundreds of metres deep and may have led indirectly to the collapse of the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete, 110 km (68 mi) to the south, through a gigantic tsunami. Another popular theory holds that the Thera eruption is the source of the legend of Atlantis.
Size: 3872px × 2592px
Location: Santorini, Aegean Sea, Greece
Photo credit: © Dimitry Bobroff / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: aegean, akrotiri, ash, atlantis, cable, caldera, car, church, civilization, cliffs, crete, cruise, cunard, cyclades, elizabeth, eruption, explosion, fira, food, greece, greek, hms, island, kameni, lagoon, legend, line, minoan, moussaka, mule, mules, nea, orthodox, queen, restaurant, restaurants, santorini, sea, ships, teleferique, thera, thira, tourists, tsunami, volcanic, volcano
