Everything about Aegean Sea totally explained
The
Aegean Sea ;,
Adalar Denizi) is a
sea arm of the
Mediterranean Sea located between the southern
Balkan and
Anatolian
peninsulas, for example, between the mainlands of
Greece and
Turkey respectively. In the north, it's connected to the
Marmara Sea and
Black Sea by the
Dardanelles and
Bosporus. The
Aegean Islands are within the sea and some bound it on its southern periphery, including
Crete and
Rhodes. The
Aegean Region, Turkey, consists of nine provinces in southwestern Turkey, in part bordering on the Aegean sea.
The sea was traditionally known as the
Archipelago (Greek: Αρχιπέλαγος), the general sense of which has since changed to refer to the Aegean Islands and, generally, to any island group because the Aegean Sea is remarkable for its large number of islands.
Etymology
In ancient times there were various explanations for the name Aegean. It was said to have been named after the Greek town of
Aegae, or
Aegea, a queen of the
Amazons who died in the sea, or Aigaion, the "sea goat", another name of Briareus, one of the archaic
Hecatonchires, or, especially among the Athenians,
Aegeus, the father of
Theseus, who drowned himself in the sea when he thought his son had died.
A possible etymology is a derivation from the Greek word αἶγες (
aiges) "waves" (
Hesychius; metaphorical use of αἴξ (
aix) "goat"), hence "wavy sea", cf. also αἰγιαλός (aigialos) "coast".
In the
Bulgarian language the sea is also known as
White sea (Бяло море). According to legend, Bulgarian sailors and merchants in the
Middle Ages found it a hospitable and timid sea to travel and called it
White sea in contrast to the hostile and dangerous
Black sea.
History
Aegean civilization is a general term for the
Bronze Age civilizations of
Greece and the
Aegean; in ancient times the sea was the birthplace of two ancient civilizations the
Minoans of
Crete, and the
Mycenean Civilization of the
Peloponnese. Later arose the city-states of
Athens and
Sparta among many others that constituted the
Athenian Empire and
Hellenic Civilization. Plato described the Greeks living round the Aegean "like frogs around a pond". The Aegean Sea was later invaded by
Persians and the
Romans, and inhabited by the
Byzantine Empire, the
Venetians, the
Seljuk Turks, and the
Ottoman Empire. The Aegean was the site of the original
democracies, and its seaways were the means of contact among several diverse civilizations of the Eastern Mediterranean. It is also the location of the wreck of the
HMHS Britannic which sank on
November 21 1916 during
World War I.
Geography
The Aegean Sea covers about 214,000 km² in area, and measures about 610 kilometres longitudinally and 300 kilometres latitudinally. The sea's maximum depth is 3,543 metres (11,624 ft), east of
Crete. The
Aegean Islands are found within its waters, with the following islands delimiting the sea on the south (generally from west to east):
Kythera,
Antikythera,
Crete,
Kasos,
Karpathos, and
Rhodes.
The Greek Aegean Islands can be simply divided into seven groups: the
Northeastern Aegean Islands,
Euboea, the Northern
Sporades, the
Cyclades, the
Saronic Islands (or
Argo-Saronic Islands), the
Dodecanese (or Southern Sporades), and
Crete. The word
archipelago was originally applied specifically to the Aegean Sea and its islands. Many of the Aegean Islands, or chains of islands, are actually extensions of the mountains on the mainland. One chain extends across the sea to
Chios, another extends across
Euboea to
Samos, and a third extends across the
Peloponnese and
Crete to
Rhodes, dividing the Aegean from the Mediterranean. Many of the islands have safe harbours and bays, but navigation through the sea is generally difficult. Many of the islands are
volcanic, and
marble and
iron are mined on other islands. The larger islands have some fertile valleys and plains. In the Aegean Sea there are two islands belonging to
Turkey:
Bozcaada (
Greek: Τένεδος
Tenedos) and
Gökçeada (
Greek:
Ίμβρος Imvros), while the rest belonging to
Greece. The Aegean Sea has about 1,415 islands and islets, of which 1,395 belong to
Greece.
The bays and gulfs of the Aegean beginning and the South and moving clockwise include on
Crete, the
Mirabelli,
Almyros,
Souda and
Chania bays or gulfs, on the mainland the
Myrtoan Sea to the west, the
Saronic Gulf northwestward, the
Petalies Gulf which connects with the
South Euboic Sea, the
Pagasetic Gulf which connects with the
North Euboic Sea, the
Thermian Gulf northwestward, the
Chalkidiki Peninsula including the
Cassandra and the
Singitic Gulfs, northward the
Strymonian Gulf and the
Gulf of Kavala and the rest are in
Turkey;
Saros Gulf,
Edremit Gulf, Dikili Gulf, Çandarlı Gulf,
İzmir Gulf,
Kuşadası Gulf,
Gulf of Gökova,
Güllük Gulf.
Further Information
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