General Information

Kea or Tzia with a total surface of 131 sq. km is the westerner island of Cyclades and the closest to Attica.
Kea with its beautiful gulfs, bays and beaches is mainly a mountainous island. Its taller top is the Prophet Ilias with an altitude of 568m. Its forests cover big extents and are famous for their oaks, the rare flowers like the “Lilly of the sea”, the wild orchids, and also the pharmaceutical herbs, the aromatic bushes, the rare mushrooms etc.
Kea is an ideal place for walkers with paths of total length of 36 km a large number of which are paved.

History

According to mythology the island suffered from drought, when the nymphs who lived there, left chased from a lion. On the island came Aristeos leader of Arcadians who offered sacrifices to Ikmeos Zeus, god of rain and since then on the island blow for 40 days cool winds, known as meltemia.
The island probably took its name from the hero Keo son of Apollo and nymph Rodoessis, who head of Lokrons from Naypactos occupied it.
At the copper ages the residents developed metallurgy and until the end of the Mycenaean years it was an important node of communication with big economic and cultural blossoming (settlement of Agia Irini).
During the archaic years (7th-6th century BC) four cities are founded: Ioylis, Karthaia, Piiessa and Korissos. The cities were independent administratively and economically. They were all surrounded by walls, and towers in vital areas. They connected to each other with a road network.
From Kea came a lot of important people of the antiquity like the intellectual Simonidis, the poet Vakhylidis, the doctor Eristratos, sophists like Thiramenis, Xenomidis, philosophers and others.
Kea had a particular political system which occupied Aristotle in his book “Keon State”.
The legislator Aristides one of the wise men of antiquity came from Kea. A characteristic law was “Keon the legal” according to which those that passed the 70th year of their life poisoned themselves with “konio” after a family feast of farewell because they believed that they were no more beneficial to society.
In the Byzantine years Kea belonged to the Byzantine Empire and its main centre was Ioylis. Later it was conquered from Venetians and other Italian dominators. After that the island was conquered by the Ottoman Empire and was finally free in 1821.