Kassos

Kassos is the southern-most island in the Dodecanese, which has an ancient history and many common cultural features with the nearby island of Crete.

Phoenicians are considered to be the first inhabitants of the island, while Homer includes Kassos in the list of islands that took part in the Trojan War. Despite its small size, the island had a great naval and commercial tradition, also using its fleet to participate in the Greek War of Independence of 1821, a participation that led to the island’s destruction by the Turks in 1824. Kassos was united to the rest of Greece in 1948.

Many of Kassos’ inhabitants emigrated to America or Egypt, where they worked on the opening of the Suez Canal in the middle of 19^th century. The island extends over a surface of 66 km², its coastline is 50km long and it has 1,000 inhabitants. It can be reached by ferry via Piraeus, Crete (Siteia, Agios Nikolaos), Rhodes, Halki and Karpathos islands or by aeroplane from Rhodes or Karpathos.

Source: GNTO