Kastellorizo

Kastellorizo or Castellorizo (USˌkɑːstəˈlɔːrɪzoʊ; Kastellórizo), officially Megisti (Μεγίστη Megísti), is a Greek island and municipality of the Dodecanese in the Eastern Mediterranean. It lies roughly off the south coast of Turkey, about southeast of Athens and east of Rhodes, almost halfway between Rhodes and Antalya, and northwest of Cyprus. Kastellorizo is part of the Rhodes regional unit. The island has become very popular in recent years among tourists looking for an isolated place in the Dodecanese, thanks also to the 1991 Oscar-winning movie Mediterraneo, by Gabriele Salvatores, which is set on the island during the Second World War. The island's official name, Megisti (Μεγίστη) means "biggest" or "greatest", but at only in area, it is the smallest of the Dodecanese. The name refers to the fact that it is the largest of the small archipelago. This name was used in antiquity, but is now rarely used in Greek, the name Kastellórizo (Καστελλόριζο) being common since the 12th century. There are several hypotheses about the origin of this name. "Kastello" derives from the Italian word "castello", meaning "castle". There is some argument on the second part of the name. The arguments are centered on the following possible origins of the element rizo: rizo being derived from the Italian word "rosso" meaning "red", either from the reddish color of the rocks of the island, the reddish color of the castle at sunset, or the color of the coat of arms of the Great Master of the Knights of Rhodes, Juan Fernández de Heredia, which stood above the gate of the castle; these arguments are widely discredited as the rocks on the island have no red pigment and the name Kastellorizo predates the Knights' arrival. rizo being a corruption of the word "Rhoge", one of the ancient appellations of the nearby island of Ro. If this is correct, the island's modern name is actually an amalgam of the separate island names "Castello" and "Rhoge". rizo being the actual Greek word "rizon" meaning "root", as researched by Greek Historian I.M.

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Related concepts (20)

Kastellorizo

Dodecanese

The Dodecanese (UKˌdəʊdɪkəˈniːz, USdoʊˌdɛkəˈniːz; Δωδεκάνησα, Dodekánisa ðoðeˈkanisa, twelve islands) are a group of 15 larger plus 150 smaller Greek islands in the southeastern Aegean Sea and Eastern Mediterranean, off the coast of Turkey's Anatolia, of which 26 are inhabited. This island group generally defines the eastern limit of the Sea of Crete. They belong to the wider Southern Sporades island group. Rhodes has been the area's dominant island since antiquity.

Aegean Islands

The Aegean Islands (Nisiá Aigaíou; Ege Adaları) are the group of islands in the Aegean Sea, with mainland Greece to the west and north and Turkey to the east; the island of Crete delimits the sea to the south, those of Rhodes, Karpathos and Kasos to the southeast. The ancient Greek name of the Aegean Sea, Archipelago (ἀρχιπέλαγος, archipelagos), was later applied to the islands it contains and is now used more generally, to refer to any island group. The vast majority of the Aegean Islands belong to Greece, being split among nine administrative regions.