Agia Roumeli () is a small village in southwest

Crete Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

. It consists of two parallel streets along the water, with several restaurants and souvenir shops. There is an old fortress, called Castle Agia Roumeli, that sits on top of a hill to the west of the village.

Geography

Agia Roumeli sits at the exit of the

Samaria Gorge The Samariá Gorge ( or just ''Φάραγγας'') is a National Park of Greece since 1962 on the island of Crete – a major tourist attraction of the island – and a World's Biosphere Reserve. The gorge is in southwest Crete in the reg ...

and a 16 kilometer hiking path from the mountainous inland region.

History

Agia Roumeli was originally known as Tarra, an ancient

city-state A city-state is an independent sovereign city which serves as the center of political, economic, and cultural life over its contiguous territory. They have existed in many parts of the world throughout history, including cities such as Rome, ...

referenced by

Homer Homer (; , ; possibly born ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Despite doubts about his autho ...

in the

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; , ; ) is one of two major Ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odyssey'', the poem is divided into 24 books and ...

as one of the Hundred Cities of Greece. In 1867, Turkish soldiers landed on Crete and attempted to move up the Samaria Gorge. They failed to reach it, but did burn down the town of Agia Roumeli.

Ecology

Near the village on Fournoti beach is a plant micro-reserve for the rare shrub '' Hypericum aciferum''. The reserve covers approximately 6.5

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), that is, square metres (), and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. ...

s and contains more than a hundred plants of the

vulnerable species A vulnerable species is a species which has been Conservation status, categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as being threatened species, threatened with extinction unless the circumstances that are threatened species, ...

References

Populated places in Chania (regional unit) Sfakia {{Crete-geo-stub