Greek Geography: The Furthest Two Greek Islands from each other. This will shock you!

[ASHOOR]

So, a bit of background: when we left Iraq in 1993 and after stops in countries like Jordan, Turkey, and Albania, we settled in Greece. We spent 2.5 years there in the mid-'90s before moving to Canada in 1997. Since then, I have fallen in love with Greece—the culture, the music, the food, and the breathtaking geography of the country.

Fast forward to July 2024, and someone from my family finally went back. That is right, despite our family's love of Greece, none of us ever made it back, until this summer. When my brother and his family were in Greece in late July and early August, I got into reading and watching about Greece's islands and the land geography in general. I knew a lot about Greece, but there was a lot of things I didn't know. For example, I had no idea the islands in Greece are divided into geographical units or groups. Some are in the western part (Ionian sea), most in the east (Aegean sea) and some in the south (mostly in the Mediterranean sea) .

So as I got deeper and deeper into the Greek islands geography, I started to notice how spread apart they are. For example, I noticed some are so remote, and much closer to Turkey than Greece, you wonder how Greece was able to maintain as part of their lands and weren't captured by Turkey given the latter's colonial ambitious in the region.

Anyway, then I got curious to know what are the two furthest islands from each other? While I got some varying answers, I wanted to see if there is a way to compare islands in the Aegean with those in the Ionian sea. And the result is the following:


Kastellorizo (Καστελλόριζο) To Othonoi (Οθονοί): the distance between these two islands is a staggering near 1,000 KM! (see it on the map here) You are basically going from the Turkish border, skipping through all of Greece from roughly southeast to the northwest, and getting very close to the eastern coast of Italy. Even flying, it is showing 7 hours and 15 mins, although I am not sure that is accurate and assuming it is accounting for transit stops?



BTW according to ChatGPT, the two furthest Greek islands from each other would be Kastellorizo to Lemnos. However, that is not accurate as you can see from the map below: it is only 570 km



BTW, to put this into context, for those in North America, this distance between these two islands is the equivalent to the distance between Chicago, Illinois to Atlanta, Georgia and a bit more



Speaking of Greek island groups:

• Kastellorizo is part of the Dodecanese group of islands in Greece
• Othonoi is part of the Ionian Islands group in Greece

ASHOOR

 

[ASHOOR]

Has anyone here been to Greece or any islands there? Shockingly, and despite having lived in Greece for 2.5 years, I have only been to one island: Aegina (Αίγινα) , which is part of the Sarconic group of Islands, and one of the closest to Athens, less than an hour in ferry from Athens. A beautiful island, even if it may not be one of the most famous or well known.

ASHOOR

 

[ASHOOR]

Another interesting fact about these two remote Greek islands:

Distance from Kastellorizo, Greece to Istanbul, Turkey of 525.88 km (326.77 mi) is closer than Kastellorizo to Athens, Greece (around 550 KM) !


ASHOOR

 

[Cascade]

Yep, surprisingly many of these islets or islands near Turkey's west coast are Greek. Because Turks didn't put their hands on them (maybe they've tried).

This is because, historically, the far west coast of Turkey was part of ancient Greece. And today they're Turkish occupied lands, including Istanbul. Lucky that Greeks still retained their islands though.

Istanbul was called Constantinople and it was a Greek city, before Turks occupied it.