Skyros

Skyros (Greek: Σκύρος) is an island in Greece, the southernmost of the Sporades, an archipelago in the Aegean Sea. Around the 2nd millennium BC and slightly later, the island was known as The Island of the Magnetes where the Magnetes used to live and later Pelasgia and Dolopia and later Skyros. At 209 square kilometres (81 sq mi) it is the largest of the Sporades, and has a population of about 3,000 (in 2011). It is part of the regional unit of Euboea.

The Hellenic Air Force has a major base in Skyros, because of the island's strategic location in the middle of the Aegean.

Municipality

The municipality Skyros is part of the regional unit of Euboea. Apart from the island Skyros it consists of a few uninhabited islands. The total area of the municipality is 223 square kilometres (86 sq mi).

Geography

The north of the island is covered by a forest, while the south, dominated by the highest mountain, called Kochila, (792 m), is bare and rocky. The island's capital is also called Skyros (or, locally, Chora). The main port, on the west coast, is Linaria. The island has a castle (the kastro) that dates from the Venetian occupation (13th to 15th centuries), a Byzantine monastery (the Monastery of Saint George), the grave of English poet Rupert Brooke in an olive grove by the road leading to Tris Boukes harbour. There are many beaches on the coast. The island has its own breed of Skyrian ponies.