Kardámaina or Kardámena (), 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 ...

town 7 km from

Kos Island International Airport Kos International Airport "Ippokratis" (; named for Hippocrates) is an international airport on the island of Kos in Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the ...

at Antimacheia, situated mid-way along the south coast of the island of

Kos Kos or Cos (; ) is a Greek island, which is part of the Dodecanese island chain in the southeastern Aegean Sea. Kos is the third largest island of the Dodecanese, after Rhodes and Karpathos; it has a population of 37,089 (2021 census), making ...

. It lies in the municipal unit of

Irakleides Irakleides () is a former municipality on the island of Kos, in the Dodecanese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it is part of the municipality Kos, of which it is a municipal unit. Population 7,467 (2021). It is the largest in area ...

, in the

Dodecanese The Dodecanese (, ; , ''Dodekánisa'' , ) are a group of 15 larger and 150 smaller Greek islands in the southeastern Aegean Sea and Eastern Mediterranean, off the coast of Anatolia, of which 26 are inhabited. This island group generally define ...

. Once a small fishing village, it has been a popular summer destination for the past two decades, offering pubs, restaurants, bars, night clubs and watersports facilities. According to the 2021 census, there were 2,132 inhabitants. Its land area is 35.150 km². Between June and September, the town population triples due to the influx of tourists.

History

Kardamaina is built on the site of the ancient settlement of Alasarna. During the 2nd century BC, Alasarna was an important urban center with a thousand citizens (excluding slaves). Archaeological excavations have brought to light some impressive ruins, such as a temple of

Apollo Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...

, an extensive

Early Christian Early Christianity, otherwise called the Early Church or Paleo-Christianity, describes the historical era of the Christian religion up to the First Council of Nicaea in 325. Christianity spread from the Levant, across the Roman Empire, and be ...

settlement (one of the few known in Greece), and four

basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica (Greek Basiliké) was a large public building with multiple functions that was typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek Eas ...

s that belong to the same period. Stone objects of everyday use (millstones, tools, vases, vessels), mostly made of

volcanic A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often fo ...

and

sedimentary rock Sedimentary rocks are types of rock (geology), rock formed by the cementation (geology), cementation of sediments—i.e. particles made of minerals (geological detritus) or organic matter (biological detritus)—that have been accumulated or de ...

s, have been recovered.

Gallery

Image:SquareC.jpg, Panoramic Main Square Image:Kos Harbour Panoramic.jpg, Panoramic Harbour Front

References

{{Authority control Kos Populated places in Kos (regional unit)