See Also: Lesbos(encyclopedia)
Lesbos(tourism)

Lesbos (sh)




or Mytilene or Mitilini

Third largest island (pop., 1991: 87,151) in the Aegean Sea.

It occupies an area of 630 sq mi (1,630 sq km), and with two other islands it forms a Greek department. Its main town is Mytilene. Lesbos was the birthplace of the poet Sappho and is the source of the term lesbian. Inhabited since งใ 3000 BC, it was settled in งใ 1050 BC by the Aetolians. After being under Persian rule (527-479 BC), it joined the Delian League. In the Peloponnesian War, it fell to Sparta (405 BC), but then it was recovered for Athens (389 BC). It later flourished under Byzantium. It was ruled by the Ottoman Empire (1462-1911) before being annexed by Greece. Fishing is important economically, as is the export of olives.