The South Aegean (, ) is one of the thirteen

administrative regions of Greece The regions of Greece () are the country's thirteen second-level administrative divisions of Greece, administrative entities, counting decentralized administrations of Greece as first-level. Regions are divided into regional units of Greece, reg ...

. It consists of the

Cyclades The CYCLADES computer network () was a French research network created in the early 1970s. It was one of the pioneering networks experimenting with the concept of packet switching and, unlike the ARPANET, was explicitly designed to facilitate i ...

and

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 ...

island groups in the central and southeastern

Aegean Sea The Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It is located between the Balkans and Anatolia, and covers an area of some . In the north, the Aegean is connected to the Marmara Sea, which in turn con ...

Administration

The South Aegean region was established in the 1987 administrative reform. With the 2010

Kallikratis plan The Kallikratis Programme () is the common name of Greek law 3852/2010 of 2010, a major administrative reform in Greece. It brought about the second major reform of the country's administrative divisions following the 1997 Kapodistrias reform. ...

, its powers and authority were redefined and extended. Along with the

North Aegean The North Aegean Region (, ) is one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece, and the smallest of the thirteen by population. It comprises the islands of the north-eastern Aegean Sea, called the North Aegean islands, except for Thasos an ...

region, it is supervised by the Decentralized Administration of the Aegean based at

Piraeus Piraeus ( ; ; , Ancient: , Katharevousa: ) is a port city within the Athens urban area ("Greater Athens"), in the Attica region of Greece. It is located southwest of Athens city centre along the east coast of the Saronic Gulf in the Ath ...

. The capital of the region is situated in

Ermoupoli Ermoupoli (), also known by the formal older name Ermoupolis or Hermoupolis ( < "Town of Hermes"), is a town and former Communities and Municipalities of Greece, municipality on the island of Syros, in the Cyclades, Greece. Since the 2011 loca ...

on the island of

Syros Syros ( ), also known as Siros or Syra, is a Greece, Greek island in the Cyclades, in the Aegean Sea. It is south-east of Athens. The area of the island is and at the 2021 census it had 21,124 inhabitants. The largest towns are Ermoupoli, Ano S ...

. The administrative region includes 50 inhabited islands, including the popular tourism destinations of Mykonos, Santorini and Rhodes. Until the Kallikratis reform, the region consisted of the two

prefectures A prefecture (from the Latin word, "''praefectura"'') is an administrative jurisdiction traditionally governed by an appointed prefect. This can be a regional or local government subdivision in various countries, or a subdivision in certain inter ...

of the

(capital:

) and the

(capital:

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 ...

). Since 1 January 2011 it is divided into 13 regional units, formed around major islands: *

Andros Andros (, ) is the northernmost island of the Greece, Greek Cyclades archipelago, about southeast of Euboea, and about north of Tinos. It is nearly long, and its greatest breadth is . It is for the most part mountainous, with many fruitful and ...

* Kalymnos * Karpathos-Kasos * Kea-Kythnos * Kos * Milos *

Mykonos Mykonos (, ; ) is a Greek island, part of the Cyclades, lying between Tinos, Syros, Paros and Naxos. The island has an area of and rises to an elevation of at its highest point. At the 2021 census, there were 10,704 inhabitants, most of ...

Naxos Naxos (; , ) is a Greek island belonging to the Cyclades island group. It is the largest island in the group. It was an important centre during the Bronze Age Cycladic Culture and in the Ancient Greek Archaic Period. The island is famous as ...

Paros Paros (; ; ) is a Greek island in the central Aegean Sea. Part of the Cyclades island group, it lies to the west of Naxos (island), Naxos, from which it is separated by a channel about wide. It lies approximately south-east of Piraeus. The Co ...

Thira Santorini (, ), officially Thira (, ) or Thera, is a Greece, Greek island in the southern Aegean Sea, about southeast from the mainland. It is the largest island of a small, circular archipelago formed by the Santorini caldera. It is the sou ...

(Santorini) * Tinos

Major communities

* Andros (Άνδρος) * Ialysós (Ιαλυσός) * Kallithéa (Καλλιθέα) * Kálymnos (Κάλυμνος) * Kárpathos (Κάρπαθος) * Kos (Κως) * Léros (Λέρος) * Milos (Μήλος) * Mýkonos (Μύκονος) * Náxos (Νάξος) * Páros (Πάρος) * Petaloúdes (Πεταλούδες) * Ródos (Ρόδος) (Rhodes in English) * Santoríni (Σαντορίνη) ''or'' Thíra (Θήρα) * Syros (Σύρου) including Ermoúpoli (Ερμούπολη)

Demographics

The region was one in only two in Greece to grow in population between 2011 and 2021 along with Crete, adding a total of 15,527 people (increase of 5%). It overtook

Epirus Epirus () is a Region#Geographical regions, geographical and historical region, historical region in southeastern Europe, now shared between Greece and Albania. It lies between the Pindus Mountains and the Ionian Sea, stretching from the Bay ...

and is presently the 9th largest region by population in Greece.

Economy

The

Gross domestic product Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the total market value of all the final goods and services produced and rendered in a specific time period by a country or countries. GDP is often used to measure the economic performanc ...

(GDP) of the province was 6.4 billion € in 2018, accounting for 3.5% of Greek economic output. GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power was 22,400 € or 74% of the EU27 average in the same year. The GDP per employee was 79% of the EU average. South Aegean is the region in Greece with the second highest GDP per capita.

References

External links

* {{Authority control NUTS 2 statistical regions of the European Union States and territories established in 1987 Administrative regions of Greece