About Rhodes
Rhodes, the largest of the Dodecanese islands of Greece, is famous worldwide for the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. While the giant statue no longer stands, the island remains a monumental destination. Its capital, Rhodes Town, is one of the best-preserved medieval towns in Europe, enclosed by massive walls built by the Knights of St. John, who ruled the island for two centuries during the Middle Ages.
The island offers an incredible variety of landscapes, from the Valley of the Butterflies (Petaloudes) to the pine-covered mountains and the golden beaches of the east coast. The village of Lindos is a highlight, with its whitewashed captains' houses clustered beneath a spectacular Acropolis that overlooks a heart-shaped bay.
Rhodes enjoys over 300 days of sunshine a year, earning it the nickname "Island of the Sun." It blends cosmopolitan resorts with traditional Greek village life. Whether wandering the Street of the Knights, windsurfing at Prasonisi, or exploring ancient Kamiros, visitors find an island where history is alive and vibrant.
The island of Rhodes constitutes the largest and most populous member of the Dodecanese island group and forms a regional unit within the South Aegean administrative region of Greece. Rhodes and the wider Dodecanese archipelago joined the modern Greek state on 7 March 1948 following a five-year British military administration that succeeded the earlier 31-year Italian colonial rule (1912-1943) established after the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-1912. The city of Rhodes hosts the University of the Aegean's School of Humanities across three faculties and the Rhodes International Centre for the Study of the Holocaust, which since 2011 has documented the July 1944 deportation of the island's 1,673-strong Sephardic Jewish community aboard three cargo ships to Auschwitz-Birkenau via Piraeus.