AEGEAN ISLANDS

The Aegean Sea is located in the east Mediterranean basin extending from the north east coasts of Greece the west coats of Turkey to the southernmost island of Greece , Gavdos, south of Crete and west until the islands of Kythira and Antikythira south of Peloponnese. The Aegean Sea covers an area of about 214,000 square kilometres and is the sea with the most Greek islands.

The Aegean islands as we can see in a map of Greece are divided in groups of islands, the main Groups are the Cyclades islands in the centre of the Aegean, the Dodecanese in the east part of the Aegean, the North Sporades or east Aegean islands including Ikaria, Samos, Chios, Limnos and Lesvos with an extension to the north with the north Aegean islands of Thassos and Samothrace.
To the east of the Greek mainland are the Sporades islands, Alonissos, Skopelos, Skiathos and Skyros and the large island of Evia. West of Attica are the Saronic islands of Salamis, Aegina, Poros, Hydra and Spetses with Kythira and Antikythira further south that belong to the same prefecture of Piraeus.

South is the island of Crete, the largest island of Greece with some small islets like Dia to the north and Gavdos to the South.Crete is the birthplace of the Minoan civilisation and one of the most developed economically islands of Greece.

The Cyclades islands are in the center of the Aegean. On the Cyclades was developed the Cycladic civilisation. The largest island of the Cyclades is Naxos. In the group belong the popular and touristic islands of Santorini, Paros, Mykonos and Ios as well as the smaller islands of Anafi, Folegandros, Sifnos, Serifos, Milos, Sikinos, Kythnos,Donousa, Kea and Koufonisia as well as the region's capital island of Syros near to Tinos and Andros that is very near to Attica and Evia.

The Dodecanese islands consists of 12 main islands and many smaller islets like Fourni, Arkioi and Agathonisi , the main Dodecanese islands include the islands of Patmos, Lipsi, Leros, Kalymnos and Kos to the north and the islands of Nisyros, Symi, Tilos, Halki, Kastelorizo, Karpathos and Kasos to the south near to Crete. The largest and administrative island is the island of Rhodes. The other large group of islands in Greece are the Ionian islands that include Corfu, Zankynthos, Kefalonia, Lefkada and Paxi.

All the Aegean islands are connected with ferries and many of them have airports with daily flights to and from Athens.