The Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between Europe's Balkan peninsula and Asia's Anatolia peninsula. The sea has an area of some 215,000 square kilometres. In the north, the Aegean is connected to the Marmara Sea and the Black Sea by the straits of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus. The Aegean Islands are located within the sea and some bound it on its southern periphery, including Crete and Rhodes. The sea reaches a maximum depth of 3,544 meters, to the east of Crete. The Thracian Sea and the Myrtoan Sea are subdivisions of the Aegean Sea.
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus and Corsica. It bounds the southern border of the Aegean Sea. Crete rests approximately 160 km (99 mi) south of the Greek mainland. It has an area of 8,336 km2 (3,219 sq mi) and a coastline of 1,046 km (650 mi).
Chania is a city of Greece and the capital of the Chania regional unit. It lies along the north coast of the island Crete, about 70 km (43 mi) west of Rethymno and 145 km (90 mi) west of Heraklion.
Heraklion or Iraklion is the largest city and the administrative capital of the island of Crete and capital of Heraklion regional unit. It is the fourth largest city in Greece with a population of 211,370 according to the 2011 census. The population of the municipality was 173,993.
The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age Aegean civilization on the island of Crete and other Aegean Islands, flourishing from c. 3000 BC to c. 1450 BC and, after a late period of decline, finally ending around 1100 BC, during the early Greek Dark Ages. It represents the first advanced civilization in Europe, leaving behind massive building complexes, tools, artwork, writing systems, and a massive network of trade. The civilization was rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th century through the work of British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans. The name "Minoan" derives from the mythical King Minos and was coined by Evans, who identified the site at Knossos with the labyrinth and the Minotaur. The Minoan civilization has been described as the earliest of its kind in Europe, and historian Will Durant called the Minoans "the first link in the European chain".
The Battle of Crete was fought during the Second World War on the Greek island of Crete. It began on the morning of 20 May 1941, when Nazi Germany began an airborne invasion of Crete. Greek and other Allied forces, along with Cretan civilians, defended the island. After one day of fighting, the Germans had suffered heavy casualties and the Allied troops were confident that they would defeat the invasion. The next day, through communication failures, Allied tactical hesitation, and German offensive operations, Maleme Airfield in western Crete fell, enabling the Germans to land reinforcements and overwhelm the defensive positions on the north of the island. Allied forces withdrew to the south coast. More than half were evacuated by the British Royal Navy and the remainder surrendered or joined the Cretan resistance. The defence of Crete evolved into a costly naval engagement; by the end of the campaign the Royal Navy's eastern Mediterranean strength had been reduced to only two battleships and three cruisers.
The history of Crete goes back to the 7th millennium BC, preceding the ancient Minoan civilization by more than four millennia. The palace based Minoan civilization was the first civilization in Europe.
OFI Crete Football Club, is a Greek professional football club based in Heraklion, on the island of Crete. It is a part of the OFI multi sports club. Outside Greece, the club is generally known as OFI Crete FC, however, the name Crete is not actually part of the club's official title. The team competes in the Super League, the top division of the Greek football league system, and hosts home games at the Theodoros Vardinogiannis Stadium in Heraklion, Crete.
Chania is one of the four regional units of Crete; it covers the westernmost quarter of the island. Its capital is the city of Chania. Chania borders only one other regional unit: that of Rethymno to the east. The western part of Crete is bounded to the north by the Cretan Sea, and to the west and south by the Mediterranean Sea. The regional unit also includes the southernmost island of Europe, Gavdos.
The Cretan Turks, Muslim-Cretans or Cretan Muslims were the Muslim inhabitants of the Greek island of Crete and now their descendants, who settled principally in Turkey, the Dodecanese Islands under Italian administration, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Libya, and Egypt, as well as in the larger Turkish diaspora.
Tsikoudia, is an Geographical Indication for pomace raki in Crete and the greek islands. Tsikoudia is an alcoholic beverage, a fragrant, grape-based pomace brandy of Cretan origin that contains 40% to 65% alcohol by volume. Tsikoudia is made by distilling of pomace, what remains of grapes pressed in winemaking. The pomace ferments for about six weeks in a tightly-sealed barrel, and is then distilled.
La Crete, also spelled La Crête, is a hamlet in northern Alberta, Canada, within Mackenzie County. It is located on Highway 697, approximately 57 kilometres (35 mi) southeast of High Level and 701 kilometres (436 mi) north of Edmonton, Alberta.
The Cretan State was established in 1898, following the intervention by the Great Powers on the island of Crete. In 1897, an insurrection on Crete led the Ottoman Empire to declare war on Greece, which led United Kingdom, France, Italy and Russia to intervene on the grounds that the Ottoman Empire could no longer maintain control. It was the prelude to the island's final annexation to the Kingdom of Greece, which occurred de facto in 1908 and de jure in 1913.
The Libyan Sea is the portion of the Mediterranean Sea north of the African coast of ancient Libya, i.e. Cyrenaica, and Marmarica (the coast of what is now eastern Libya and western Egypt, between Tobruk and Alexandria). This designation was used by ancient Geographers describing the southern Mediterranean, but the term is also used by modern travel Writers and cartographers. The southern coastline of Crete which borders the Libyan Sea includes the Asterousia Mountains and Mesara Plain; this area is the locus of considerable ancient Bronze Age settlement including the sites of Kommos, Hagia Triada and Phaistos.
Greece is a country of the Balkans, in Southeastern Europe, bordered to the north by Albania, North Macedonia and Bulgaria; to the east by Turkey, and is surrounded to the east by the Aegean Sea, to the south by the Cretan and the Libyan Seas, and to the west by the Ionian Sea which separates Greece from Italy.
Gramvousa also Grampousa refers to two small uninhabited islands off the coast of a peninsula also known Gramvousa Peninsula in north-western Crete in the regional unit of Chania. The Gramvousa Peninsula forms the westernmost of the two pairs of peninsulae in north-western Crete and is the western part of Kissamos Bay.
The island of Crete came under the rule of the Byzantine Empire in two periods: the first extends from the late Roman period to the conquest of the island by Andalusian exiles in the late 820s, and the second from the island's reconquest in 961 to its capture by the competing forces of Genoa and Venice in 1205.
The Church of Crete is an Eastern Orthodox church, comprising the island of Crete in Greece. The Church of Crete is semi-autonomous (self-governing) under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The current archbishop of Crete is, since 30 August 2006, Irinaios Athanasiadis.
The Field Elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Cretensis' [:from Crete] was first mentioned by Nicholson in Kew Hand-List Trees & Shrubs Vol.2 (1896), as Ulmus campestris var. cretensis, without description. A 1908 herbarium specimen at Kew Gardens with an accompanying description suggests that 'Cretensis' is not synonymous with Ulmus minor var. canescens, also present on Crete.
