Greek Islands Portal

Kythnos is also called Thermia, with reference to its mineral springs. It lies between Kea and Serifos islands.
Kythnos is about 100 square kilometers in area with a coastline of about 100 kilometers. The island has small cultivated areas between low hills, where the locals grow fruits, garden produces and vines.
It has more than 70 beaches.

As the finds from the limited excavations on the island, show it was inhabited from the Mesolithic period, and the settlement discovered here is the earliest in the Cyclades (7500 – 6500 BC).
Its present name derives from Kythnos, the leader of the Dryopians. According to mythology, these came from Evia and settled on the island.
The philosopher Aristotle dealt with the state of Kythnos in his Constitution of the Kythnians.
In 1207, Kythnos came under the rule of the Frankish overlord Marco Sanudo, and it remained in Venetian hands for 400 years.
After it falls to the Turks and the new capital was located inland, as the name Messaria suggests. Later, this town became known as Hora (the generic Greek name for a capital town, also spelled Chora). Under the Ottomans, Kythnos enjoyed religious freedom, but was a poor, under-populated place, still beset by pirates and suffering frequent epidemics.