Dodecanese

(Local Name: Dokekánisa) The Dodecanese ("Twelve Islands") are a group of islands off the southwest coast of Asia Minor, the most southerly part of the Southern Sporades. The group consists of the fourteen larger islands of Lipsí, Pátmos, Léros, Kálymnos, Kos, Astypálaia, Nísyros, Symi, Tílos, Rhodes, Khalki, Kárpathos, Kásos and Kastellórizo, together with some 40 smaller islands and islets.

These islands belong geologically to the mainland of Anatolia, but culturally and historically to Greece. With the exception of Rhodes they are short of water and for the most part barren. The inhabitants earn their livelihood from agriculture, sponge-diving (headquarters of the Greek sponge-fishing fleet; now declining), silkworm culture, pottery manufacture, tanning, carpet-weaving and now, increasingly, tourism. Neither in Greek nor Roman times were the Dodecanese a single political unit. It was only in the 16th century, under Turkish rule, that they gained a common political status, with extensive autonomy in domestic affairs. In 1912 most of the islands were occupied by Italy, which held on to them as security against Turkish-occupied Libya. Under the treaty of Lausanne in 1923, Turkey ceded the whole of the Dodecanese to Italy. After suffering military attack and German occupation during WWII, the islands were returned to Greece in 1947.

The Dodecanese enjoy certain tax privileges.