The Islands of Greece Trivia Quiz

At 8,336 sq km Crete is over twice the size of the next largest Greek island and has a population of over 600,000. It's a mountainous island, and it's renowned for many of its geographical features, for example the Samaria Gorge. It was the cradle of the earliest European civilization, the Minoan, in about 2,700 BCE. Like that of most Greek islands the Cretan economy is predominantly based on tourism, but agriculture is also important and Crete is one of the few Greek islands that can support itself without tourism. My wife has visited Crete - she said it was pleasant but blisteringly hot - her ears got sunburnt!

Evia or Euboea is a long, narrow island running along the east coast of Attica. With an area of about 3,670 sq km it's less than half the size of Crete. At its closest it's only 40 m from the mainland, having probably been split off by an earthquake. Its population is about 198,000, of which a number are of Albanian descent.

The north of the island is very fertile but was devastated by the forest fires in 2021. Tourism is limited, although it's only about an hour by road and ferry from Athens airport. I've spent many happy hours sitting at bars on the harbour front at Rafina, watching the little ferries go back and forth! And I've very special memories of sitting in a taverna 500 m up a mountain side on Andros, the adjacent island, watching the sun go down over this island on Midsummer's Day.

Lesbos sits in the northeastern Aegean Sea, and with an area of 1,633 sq km it's less than half the size of Evia; the population is about 84,000. At one time it was a tourist hotspot, but in recent years the arrival of large numbers of refugees has adversely affected this.

The island is, of course, best known for being the birthplace of the classical lyric poet Sappho. It's also a great place for birding, being on a main migratory route for many bird species.

Slightly smaller than Lesbos at 1,401 sq km and with a population of about 125,000 is the Dodecanese island of Rhodes. It's very much a tourist island with nearly two million visitors per year.

However it's also particularly noted for its history. Firstly one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Colossus of Rhodes, was built there in 280 BCE but was destroyed by an earthquake in 226 BCE. More recently, from 1310 onwards the island was the home base of the Knights Hospitaller of Rhodes who built, inter alia, the Palace of the Grand Master. The island finally fell to the Ottomans in 1522.

The Northern Aegean island of Chios is the next smallest at 842 sq km and with a population of about 50,000.

Chios has one main claim to fame, but sadly also one main claim to infamy. The claim to fame is that the island is a major producer of mastic gum, the resin extracted from the mastic tree. When it's chewed it softens and the flavour, at first bitter, becomes refreshing, like pine or cedar.

The claim to infamy is the Chios massacre, in which tens of thousands of Greeks on the island were massacred, expelled, and enslaved by Ottoman troops during the Greek War of Independence in 1822. As a result of this Chios didn't join independent Greece until 1913.

Slightly smaller than Chios, the Ionian island of Kefalonia is 781 sq km in area with a population of about 36,000.

Kefalonia, like the other Ionian islands, has a history that's quite different to the islands on the eastern side of mainland Greece. For example, from the 12th to the end of the 15th century the island was in the possession of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily before being occupied for about 20 years by the Ottomans.
The Venetians then took control for 300 years before being briefly displaced by the French and then by the British. Complicated or what?

A major tragedy took place on the island in September 1943. The island was occupied by Italian and German forces, but when the Italian government surrendered the Germans garrison ordered the Italian soldiers to hand over their weapons. The Italians refused, so the German troops attacked them and besieged Argostoli. The Germans eventually prevailed, taking the Italians as prisoners; they then executed about 5,000 of them. The author Louis de Bernières based his book "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" upon this incident.

In recent years the island has suffered a number of earthquakes and forest fires.

The next island in this ranking is another Ionian island, Corfu, about 595 sq km and with about 99,000 inhabitants. It's a major holiday destination with a thriving main town full of Venetian-style architecture; it also has a cricket pitch, reflecting the time the island spent under British administration from 1814 to 1864.

Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh was born of Corfu, and because of the difficult political situation in Greece at that time he and his family had to be evacuated by a British warship, HMS Calypso, very soon after he was born - he was carried in an orange box.

My first holidays in Greece were on Corfu at Nissaki and Kaminaki on the north-east coast - the latter is particularly lovely. The wildlife on the island is very varied, as recorded by British naturalist Gerald Durrell in his wonderful book "My Family and Other Animals", and I remember being fascinated by the call of the Scops owls at night.

Lemnos is in the northeastern Aegean Sea, with an area of 478 sq km and a population of about 16,000.

Lemnos is definitely not a tourism island; it suffers dreadfully from the gale force Meltemi wind that blows from the north in July and August which probably deters would-be tourists. Rather, it concentrates on agricultural products such as cheeses (Kalathaki Limnou and Melichloro, made from sheep or goat milk), all types of fruit, almonds, olives and a nice dry Muscat wine. The island was sacred to Hephaestus, the god of metallurgy.

The island is only 30 miles from the Dardanelles Straits and so it was the natural choice for the British and ANZAC bases during the Gallipoli campaign; there are a number of Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries on the island.

Samos in the eastern Aegean Sea is fractionally smaller than Lemnos, with an area of 477 sq km and a population of about 33,000. It's only a mile from the Turkish coast.

Samos was famed throughout the ancient world for its wine, and the production of wine made from the Muscat grape is still important to the island's economy. Tourism has also developed since the 1980s.

It was an important and powerful state during Classical times. It was the birthplace of Pythagoras and of the important philosopher Epicurus, and the fabulist and storyteller Aesop was thought to have lived there. It was also the source of the red earthenware pottery known as Samian ware, which was used throughout the Roman empire.

Tenth and last on this list with an area of 430 sq km and a population of about 19,000 is Naxos, the largest of the Cycladic islands.

Naxos is a lovely island, green and fertile; agriculture is very important there, and it's renowned for its potatoes and Arseniko Naxou cheese. It's a popular tourist destination too, especially for windsurfers who enjoy the strong Meltemi wind in July and August.

The island features a lot in Greek mythology. Firstly Zeus was raised in a cave on Mount Zas where he was hidden from his father Cronos who would have killed him. Also Theseus abandoned Ariadne on Naxos after she'd helped him killed the Minotaur. She was then seduced by Dionysus, as shown by Titian in his famous painting.