Ro or Rho () is a small

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

island in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, more precisely in the

Levantine Sea The Levantine Sea () is the easternmost part of the Mediterranean Sea. Geography The Levantine Sea is bordered by Turkey in the north and north-east corner, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Palestine in the east, Egypt in the south, and the Aegean ...

, near

Kastellorizo Kastellorizo or Castellorizo ( ; ), officially Megisti (), is a Greek island and municipality of the Dodecanese in the Eastern Mediterranean.Bertarelli, 131 It lies roughly off the south coast of Turkey, about southeast of Athens and east of R ...

, close to

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

Anatolia Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

n coast. It is part of the municipality of Megísti (Kastellorizo) in the South Aegean region.

Description

Together with other islets in the surrounding region, Ro was the object of a sovereignty dispute in the 1920s between Turkey and

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

, which at the time was in possession of Kastellorizo and the Dodecanese islands. A 1932 treaty assigned Ro to the Kingdom of Italy. It came under Greek sovereignty in 1947, together with the other former Italian possessions in the Aegean. The islet is named ''Kara Ada'' ("Black Island") in Turkish.

History

Anciently, the island was known as Rhoge (). An inhabitant of the island was called Rogaeus (). Ancient fortifications show that during the

Hellenistic period In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

and later, there was a small garrison post on the island. The three towers of

, Ro and Strongyli comprise the main links in a dense network of watchtowers constructed by the citizens of

Rhodes Rhodes (; ) is the largest of the Dodecanese islands of Greece and is their historical capital; it is the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, ninth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Administratively, the island forms a separ ...

during the Hellenistic period, to control the sea routes and the coast. Ro has been uninhabited for most of its modern history, except for the one Greek woman, with her husband and her mother, who made it famous, Despina Achladioti. Every day, Achladioti, also known as the Lady of Ro, raised a Greek flag over the island, until her death in 1982. A Greek border outpost is based on the island, with the primary duty of continuing the tradition of raising the flag. According to the 2011 census the island has no permanent residents. On April 10, 2018, Greek soldiers fired warning shots at a Turkish helicopter approaching the island. The helicopter was flying at a very low altitude late at night with its navigation lights switched off.

References

* Kalliopi Bairami, "Ro" in: Andreas Vlachopoulos (ed.), ''Archaiologia: Nisia tou Aigaiou'', Melissa 2005, p. 375.

External links

Official website of Municipality of Megisti
{{Authority control Kastellorizo

Description

History

See also

References

External links