Rhodes is the largest of the Dodecanese Islands and lies in the crystal clear South Eastern Aegean Sea, approximately 16 kilometres (10 Miles) from the Turkish Port of Marmaris.  It is the fourth largest of the Greek Islands, 79.7 km (49.5 mi) long and 38 km (24 mi) wide, with a population of just over 117,000.  Rhodes is famous for once being the home of one of the seven wonders of the world, The Colossus of Rhodes, and is commonly referred to as “The Island of the Sun”, after the God of Rhodes 'Ilios', the Sun-God.   The island itself was named after the 'Rodos Hibiscus', a stunning pink Hibiscus flower, native to the island.

The island was inhabited in the Neolithic period, although little remains of this culture. In the 16th century BC the Minoans came to Rhodes, and later Greek mythology recalled a Rhodian race they called the Telchines, and associated Rhodes with Danaus; it was sometimes nicknamed Telchinis. In the 15th century BC the Achaeans invaded. It was, however, in the 11th century BC that the island started to flourish, with the coming of the Dorians. It was the Dorians who later built the three important cities of Lindos, Ialyssos and Kameiros, which together with Kos, Cnidus and Halicarnassus (on the mainland) made up the so-called Dorian Hexapolis.

In Pindar's ode, the island was said to be born of the union of Helios the sun god and the nymph Rhode, and the cities were named for their three sons. The rhoda is a pink hibiscus native to the island. Diodorus Siculus added that Actis, one of the sons of Helios and Rhode travelled to Egypt where he built the city of Heliopolis and he taught the Egyptians the science of astrology. [6]

Invasions by the Persians eventually overran the island, but after their defeat by the forces from Athens in 478 BC, the cities joined the Athenian League. When the Peloponnesian War broke out in 431 BC, Rhodes remained largely neutral, although it remained a member of the League. The war lasted until 404 BC, but by this time Rhodes had withdrawn entirely from the conflict and had decided to go her own way.

In 408 BC the cities united to form one territory, and built a new capital on the northern end of the island, the city of Rhodes: its regular plan was superintended by the Athenian architect Hippodamus. However the Peloponnesian War had so weakened the entire Greek culture that it lay open to invasion. In 357 BC the island was conquered by the king Mausolus of Caria, then fell to the Persians 340 BC. But their rule was also short and to the great relief of its citizens, Rhodes became a part of the growing empire of Alexander III of Macedon in 332 BC after he defeated the Persians.

Following the death of Alexander his generals vied for control of the kingdom. Three of them, Ptolemy, Seleucus, and Antigonus, succeeded in dividing the kingdom among themselves. Rhodes formed strong commercial and cultural ties with the Ptolemies in Alexandria, and together they formed the Rhodo-Egyptian alliance which controlled trade throughout the Aegean in the 3rd century BC. The city developed into a maritime, commercial and cultural center and its coins were in circulation almost everywhere in the Mediterranean. Its famous schools of philosophy, science, literature and rhetoric, shared masters with Alexandria: the Athenian rhetorician Aeschines who formed a school at Rhodes; Apollonius of Rhodes; the observations and works of the astronomers Hipparchus and Geminus, the rhetorician Dionysios Trax. Its school of sculptors developed a rich, dramatic style that can be characterized as "Hellenistic Baroque".

In 305 BC, Antigonus had his son, Demetrius besiege Rhodes in an attempt to break its alliance with Egypt. Demetrius created huge siege engines including a 180 ft (55 m) battering ram and a siege tower named Helepolis that weighed 360,000 pounds (163,293 kg). Despite this engagement, in 304 BC, after only one year he relented and signed a peace agreement, leaving behind a huge store of military equipment. The Rhodians sold the equipment and used the money to erect a statue of their sun god, Helios, the statue now known as Colossus of Rhodes.

In 164 BC, Rhodes signed a treaty with Rome, and became an educational center for Roman noble families, and was especially noted for its teachers of rhetoric, such as Hermagoras and the author of the Rhetorica ad Herennium. At first the state was an important ally of Rome and enjoyed numerous privileges, but these were later lost in various machinations of Roman politics. Cassius eventually invaded the island and sacked the city.

In the 1st century AD, the Emperor Tiberius spent a brief term of exile on Rhodes. Saint Paul brought Christianity to the island. Rhodes reached her zenith in the third century. In 395, the long Byzantine Empire period began for Rhodes, when the Roman Empire was split and the eastern half gradually became a Greek empire. Although part of Byzantium for the next thousand years, Rhodes was nevertheless[clarification needed] repeatedly attacked by various forces. It was first occupied by Muslim forces of Muawiyah I in 672. Much later, Rhodes was recaptured by the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus during the First Crusade.

In 1309 the Byzantine era came to an end when the island was occupied by forces of the Knights Hospitaller. Under the rule of the newly named "Knights of Rhodes", the city was rebuilt into a model of the European medieval ideal. Many of the city's famous monuments, including the Palace of the Grand Master, were built during this period.

The strong walls which the Knights had built withstood the attacks of the Sultan of Egypt in 1444, and of Mehmed II in 1480. Ultimately, however, Rhodes fell to the large army of Suleiman the Magnificent in December 1522, long after the rest of the Byzantine empire had been lost. The few surviving Knights were permitted to retire to the Kingdom of Sicily. The Knights would later move their base of operations to Malta. The island was thereafter a possession of the Ottoman Empire for nearly four centuries.

In February 1840, the Jews of Rhodes were falsely accused of ritually murdering a Christian boy in what became known as the Rhodes blood libel.

In 1912, Italy seized Rhodes from the Turks. The island thus bypassed many of the events associated with the "exchange of the minorities" between Greece and Turkey.

Due to the Treaty of Lausanne the island - together with the Dodecanese - was officially assigned to Italy, and became the core of the possession of the Isole Italiane dell'Egeo.

Following the Italian Armistice of September 8th,1943, the British attempted to get the Italian garrison on Rhodes to change sides. This was anticipated by the German Army, which succeeded in occupying the island. In great measure this resulted in the British failure in the subsequent Dodecanese Campaign.

On July 19, 1944 the island’s 1700 Jewish inhabitants were rounded up by the Gestapo and sent to extermination camps, of whom some 160 survived. The Turkish Consul Selahattin Ülkümen succeeded, at considerable risk to himself and his family, in saving 42 Jews who had Turkish citizenship or were family members of Turkish citizens.

In 1948, together with the other islands of the Dodecanese, Rhodes was united with Greece.

In 1949, Rhodes was the venue for negotiations between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, concluding with the 1949 Armistice Agreements.

You can expect to enjoy over 300 days per year of uninterrupted sunshine. It generally only rains in the winter months between January and April. (Click to see Weather for Rhodes). The City of Rhodes itself is located on the northern tip of the Island, and the beautiful Old Town (within the walled city) is a United Nations declared World Heritage Site. It is effectively a walled fortress and has countless alleyways and narrow streets, each bordered by truly magnificent historic buildings.

The interior of the island is mountainous, sparsely inhabited (almost half the population lives in Rhodes City), and covered with forests of Pine and Cypress trees, and is home to the Rhodian deer.  Mount Attavyros, at 1,216 metres (3,990 ft), is the island's highest point of elevation. While the shores are mainly rocky, the island has arable strips of land where citrus fruit, wine grapes, vegetables, olives and other crops are grown.

Outside of the city of Rhodes, the island is dotted with small villages and beach resorts, among them Faliraki, Lindos, Kremasti, Haraki, Pefkos, Archangelos, Afantou, Koskinou, Embona (Attavyros), Paradisi, and Trianta (Ialysos). Tourism is the island's primary source of income.