For other uses, see Kos (disambiguation).
| Kos Κως | |
|---|---|
The harbour of Kos town
| |
 
Kos
| |
| Coordinates: 36°51′N 27°14′ECoordinates: 36°51′N 27°14′E | |
| Country | Greece |
| Administrative region | South Aegean |
| Regional unit | Kos |
| Area | |
| • Municipality | 287.2 km2(110.9 sq mi) |
| Highest elevation | 843 m (2,766 ft) |
| Lowest elevation | 0 m (0 ft) |
| Population (2011)[1] | |
| • Municipality | 33,388 |
| • Municipality density | 120/km2 (300/sq mi) |
| • Municipal unit | 19,432 |
| Community | |
| Time zone | EET (UTC+2) |
| • Summer (DST) | EEST (UTC+3) |
| Postal code | 853 xx |
| Area code(s) | 22420 |
| Vehicle registration | ΚΧ, ΡΟ, PK |
| Website | www.kos.gr |
Kos or Cos (English pronunciation: /kɒs/) (Greek: Κως, Greek pronunciation: [kos]) is a Greek island, part of the Dodecanese island chain in the southeastern Aegean Sea, off the Anatolian coast of Turkey. Kos is the third largest of the Dodecanese by area, afterRhodes and Karpathos; it has a population of 33,388 (2011 census), making it the second most populous of the Dodecanese, after Rhodes.[2] The island measures 40 by 8 kilometres (25 by 5 miles), and is 4 km (2 miles) from the coast of the ancient region of Caria in Turkey. Administratively, Kos constitutes a municipality within the Kos regional unit, which is part of the South Aegean region. The principal town of the island and seat of the municipality is Kos town.[3]he name Kos (Greek: Κῶς, genitive Κῶ)[4] is first attested in the Iliad, and has been in continuous use since. Other ancient names include Meropis, Cea,[5] and Nymphaea.[6]
In many Romance languages, Kos was formerly known as Stancho, Stanchio, or Stinco, and in Ottoman and modern Turkish it is known as İstanköy, all from the Greek expression εις την Κω 'to Kos';[7] cf. the similar Stamboul and Stimpoli, Crete. Under the rule of the Knights Hospitaller of Rhodes, it was known as Lango or Langò, presumably because of its length.[8][9] In The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, the author misunderstands this, and treats Lango and Kos as distinct islands.[10]
In Italian, it is known as Coo.
A person from Kos is called a "Koan" in English. The word is also an adjective, as in "Koan goods".[11]Further information: Ancient Greece, Roman Greece, Byzantine Greece, Knights Hospitaller, Ottoman Greece and Italian Islands of the Aegean
The island was originally colonised by the Carians. The Dorians invaded it in the 11th century BC, establishing a Dorian colony with a large contingent of settlers from Epidaurus, whose Asclepius cult made their new home famous for its sanatoria. The other chief sources of the island's wealth lay in its wines and, in later days, in its silk manufacture.[14]
Its early history–as part of the religious-political amphictyony that included Lindos, Kamiros, Ialysos, Cnidus and Halicarnassus, the Dorian Hexapolis (hexapolis means six cities in Greek),[15]–is obscure. At the end of the 6th century, Kos fell under Achaemenid domination but rebelled after the Greek victory at the Battle of Mycale in 479. During the Greco-Persian Wars, before it twice expelled the Persians, it was ruled by Persian-appointed tyrants, but as a rule it seems to have been under oligarchic government. In the 5th century, it joined theDelian League, and, after the revolt of Rhodes, it served as the chief Athenian station in the south-eastern Aegean (411–407). In 366 BC, a democracy was instituted. In 366 BC, the capital was transferred from Astypalaia to the newly built town of Kos, laid out in aHippodamian grid. After helping to weaken Athenian power, in the Social War (357-355 BC), it fell for a few years to the king Mausolus of Caria.
Proximity to the east gave the island first access to imported silk thread. Aristotle mentions silk weaving conducted by the women of the island.[16] Silk production of garments was conducted in large factories by women slaves.[17]
In the Hellenistic age, Kos attained the zenith of its prosperity. Its alliance was valued by the kings of Egypt, who used it as a naval outpost to oversee the Aegean. As a seat of learning, it arose as a provincial branch of the museum ofAlexandria, and became a favorite resort for the education of the princes of the Ptolemaic dynasty. During the hellenistic age, there was a medical school; however, the theory that this school was founded by Hippocrates (see below) during the classical age is an unwarranted extrapolation.[18]Among its most famous sons were the physician Hippocrates, the painter Apelles, the poetsPhilitas and, perhaps, Theocritus.
Diodorus Siculus (xv. 76) and Strabo (xiv. 657) describe it as a well-fortified port. Its position gave it a high importance in Aegean trade; while the island itself was rich in wines of considerable fame.[19] Under Alexander the Great and the Egyptian Ptolemies the town developed into one of the great centers in the Aegean; Josephus[20] quotes Strabo to the effect that Mithridates was sent to Kos to fetch the gold deposited there by the queen Cleopatra of Egypt. Herod is said to have provided an annual stipend for the benefit of prize-winners in the athletic games,[21]and a statue was erected there to his son Herod the Tetrarch ("C. I. G." 2502 ). Paul briefly visited here according to Acts 21:1.
Except for occasional incursions by corsairs and some severe earthquakes, the island has rarely had its peace disturbed. Following the lead of its larger neighbour, Rhodes, Kos generally displayed a friendly attitude toward the Romans; in 53 AD it was made a free city.Lucian (125–180) mentions their manufacture of semi-transparent light dresses, a fashion success.[22] The island of Kos also featured a provincial library during the Roman period. The island first became a center for learning during the Ptolemaic dynasty, and Hippocrates,Apelles, Philitas and possibly Theocritus came from the area. An inscription lists people who made contributions to build the library in the 1st century AD.[23] One of the people responsible for the library's construction was the Kos doctor Gaiou Stertinou Xenofontos, who lived in Rome and was the personal physician of the Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, and Nero.[24]
The bishopric of Cos was a suffragan of the metropolitan see of Rhodes.[25] Its bishop Meliphron attended the First Council of Nicaea in 325. Eddesius was one of the minority Eastern bishops who withdrew from the Council of Sardica in about 344 and set up a rival council at Philippopolis. Iulianus went to the synod held in Constantinople in 448 in preparation for the Council of Chalcedon of 451, in which he participated as a legate of Pope Leo I, and he was a signatory of the joint letter that the bishops of the Roman province of Insulae sent in 458 to Byzantine Emperor Leo I the Thracian with regard to the killing of Proterius of Alexandria. Dorotheus took part in a synod in 518. Georgius was a participant of the Third Council of Constantinople in 680–681. Constantinus went to the Photian Council of Constantinople (879).[26][27] Under Byzantine rule, apart from the participation of its bishops in councils, the island's history remains obscure. It was governed by a droungarios in the 8th/9th centuries, and seems to have acquired some importance in the 11th and 12th centuries:Nikephoros Melissenos began his uprising here, and in the middle of the 12th century, it was governed by a scion of the ruling Komnenosdynasty, Nikephoros Komnenos.[25]
Today the metropolis of Kos remains under the direct authority of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, rather than the Church of Greece, and is also listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see.[28]
Following the Fourth Crusade, Kos passed under Genoese control, although it was retaken in ca. 1224 and kept for a while by the Empire of Nicaea.[25] In the 1320s, Kos nominally formed part of the realm of Martino Zaccaria, but was most likely in the hands of Turkish corsairs until ca. 1337, when the Knights Hospitaller took over the island.[25] The last Hospitaller governor of the island was Piero de Ponte.
The Ottoman Empire captured the island in early 1523.[25] The Ottomans ruled Kos for almost 400 years, until it was transferred to Italy in 1912 after the Italo-Turkish War.[29] The Italians developed the infrastructures of the island, after the ruinous earthquake of 23 April 1933, which destroyed a great part of the old city and damaged many new buildings. Architect Rodolfo Petracco drew up the new city plan, transforming the old quarters into an archaeological park, and dividing the new city into a residential, an administrative, and a commercial area.,[30] In World War II, the island, as Italian possession, was part of theAxis. It was controlled by Italian troops until the Italian surrender in 1943. On that occasion, 100 Italian officers who had refused to join the Germans were executed. British and German forces then clashed for control of the island in the Battle of Kos as part of the Dodecanese Campaign, in which the Germans were victorious. German troops occupied the island until 1945, when it became a protectorate of the United Kingdom, which ceded it to Greece in 1947.[citation needed]
In the late 1920s about 3,700 Turks lived in Kos, slightly less than 50% of the population, settled mainly in the west part of the city.[31]
A 21-month British child disappeared in 1991, triggering an extensive investigation and international publicity. The child has never been found.
In 2011, Kos city was merged with two other municipalities, creating the new Kos municipality: the three municipalities became municipal units:[3]
Dikaios, Irakleides, and Kos.
Δεν υπάρχουν σχόλια:
Δημοσίευση σχολίου