Cos

Ancient Greek ruins

Cos, Modern Greek Kos, Italian Coo, Turkish İstanköy, island off the southwestern coast of Turkey, the third largest of the Dodecanese Islands, Greece.

A ragged limestone ridge runs along the southern coast. The highest point of the island, Mount Dhíkaios (2,776 feet [846 metres]), divides the island near its centre. A fertile lowland stretches along the north coast that is irrigated by the deep springs of the Prión Ridge, which also provides water for the capital, Kos, on the northeast coast. The regular coastline finds its only suitable harbour at Mandráki, the port of Kos.

The island’s principal resources are vineyards, figs, and olives; vegetables are also grown, especially around the village of Andimákhia, the corn (maize) centre of the central lowland. Melons, grapes, and other fruits are exported, and tobacco and sesame are other products. There are mineral springs and modern bathing installations in the mountains in the south.

The Cos of antiquity, inhabited from prehistory, was resettled by Dorian colonists from Epidaurus (Peloponnesus) and became a minor member of the Delian League in the 5th century bc. The sanctuary of Asclepius became a health resort and the first school of scientific medicine in Greece. Among its most famous citizens were the physician Hippocrates, the painter Apelles, and the poets Philetas and Theocritus. Cos was occupied by Alexander III the Great (336 bc) and subsequently (323) passed to the Ptolemies, who used its schools extensively. Annexed to the Roman province of Asia, in ad 53 it was declared a free city. It became a Byzantine bishopric, and many early Christian basilicas have been unearthed. In the 11th century it was ravaged by the Saracens and was occupied in 1215 by the Knights of St. John, who built a fortress to help guard the approaches to the island of Rhodes. In 1523 it passed to the Ottomans after three sieges. Occupied by Italy (1912), which restored the sanctuary destroyed in the earthquake of ad 554, the island was ceded to Greece by Italy in 1947. In 1933 the town of Kos was destroyed by an earthquake but was rebuilt over the old Turkish quarter.