Uzunada
38°30′16″N 26°42′53″E / 38.50444°N 26.71472°E
Uzunada or Uzun ada (literally "long island") is an island situated at the entry of the Gulf of İzmir on the west coast of Turkey. Its area is 26.8 km2 (10 sq mi).[1]
It is situated between the Karaburun Peninsula, Turkey in the west, and the district of Foça in the east. Stretching over a length of c. 9 kilometres (6 miles) in north-south direction, it is Turkey's fourth largest island, and its third largest in the Aegean Sea.[1]
The island has been called by many names. Its ancient Greek name was Drymoussa (Δρυμούσσα), and it is also known under its later Greek names of Makronisi ("long island") or Englezonisi ("Englishmen's island"),[2][3] but more likely is that this name is derived from the word Enclazomenisi from ancient city Clazomenae at the opposite coast. To its south are several smaller islets, including Yassıca. It has also been called "Chustan Island" (or Keustan).[4]
"Uzunada" is also the name of several other, smaller islets along the Turkish Aegean coast.[3] Uzunada is currently closed to settlements due to military activities.
History
[edit]Thucydides briefly mentions Drymoussa as a location where some ships of the Spartan Navarch Astyochus put in for eight days during a period of high winds in the 20th year of the Peloponnesian War.[5]
After the Treaty of Apamea was concluded in 188 B.C., the city of Clazomenae was awarded the island.[6][7][8]
Despite claims of ownership of an English family dating from the mid-19th century, by 1914 there were about 2,000 Ottoman Greeks living on the island.[9]
During World War I, the British Mediterranean Fleet occupied the island (referred to as "Chustan") in 1916, where they also issued some rare stamps.[10][11]
After the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, most of the island's former inhabitants settled in Nea Ionia, Magnesia.[12]
References
[edit]- ^ a b "Turkey's Statistical Yearbook 2013" (PDF) (in Turkish and English). Turkish Statistical Institute. 2014. p. 7.
- ^ (16 Nov 2012). UZUNADA KİMİN?, Yeni Asır (article in Turkish re island ownership, notes prior name of "Englezonisi (İngilizlerin adası)")
- ^ a b US GeoNames database
- ^ Mediterranean Pilot, Volume 4, pp. 191-92 (4th ed. 1908)
- ^ Thucydides, 8.31 (" He was himself carried to Phocaea and Cymè, and the remainder of the fleet put into the islands, Marathussa, Pelè, and Drymussa, which lie off Clazomenae. There, being detained eight days by the weather, they spoiled and destroyed part of the property of the Clazomenians which had been deposited in the islands")
- ^ A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, Volume 1, p. 632 (1872)
- ^ Pinkerton, John. A general collection of ... voyages and travels, Vol. X, p. 653 (1811)
- ^ Bowyer, W. A Description of the East and Some Other Countries, Vol. 2, Part 2, p. 41 (1745)
- ^ Turkish Island Romance, Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume LI, Issue 5241, 10 December 1926, Page 1 (reprinted from The London Times)
- ^ Stamp Collectors will be Kept Busy, The Tomahawk (date?)
- ^ SMALL ISLANDS IN THE NEAR EAST, PHILATELIC EXPERTS, Retrieved 22 May 2015
- ^ "Εγγλεζονήσι, πολιτιστικός σύλλογος Νέας Ιωνίας Μαγνησίας". Archived from the original on 2013-07-16. Retrieved 2011-08-12.
