Saria Island

Template: Infobox Island / Maintenance / image missing

Saria (Greek Σαρία ( f sg ) ) is today an extremely sparsely populated Greek island in the southeastern Aegean Sea, which belongs to the group of islands of the Dodecanese. It is separated only by a good 100 m wide and 1.5 m deep strait from the larger southern neighbor island of Karpathos. In ancient times, the islands were still connected by a land bridge, only later land reductions resulting from earthquakes led to the current separation of the islands.

Saria is almost 8 kilometers long, up to 4.5 kilometers wide and has an area of ​​20.429 km ². The mountainous and barren island reaches a height of 631 meters.

From the earlier settlement of the island still bear witness to the sparse and partly situated below the waterline remains of the ancient city of Nisyros, from probably the village was founded around the year 900 AD Palatia emerged with the ruins of a monastery.

In 1420, due to constant pirate attacks almost all the inhabitants left the island and founded the village of Olympos on Karpathos, which is together with the island since 2011 part of the municipality of Karpathos. Inhabitants of Olympos and the little all year living here shepherds and farmers operate on the island of grazing and to a lesser extent on small areas agriculture.

Saria has some very small, but almost untouched beaches. A tourist infrastructure is not available, the island can also be visited during a day trip out of Karpathos. Besides bathing tours also walks around the island offered.