{"id":24157,"date":"2024-06-12T02:18:57","date_gmt":"2024-06-11T20:48:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=24157"},"modified":"2025-10-06T12:25:37","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T06:55:37","slug":"crete-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/crete-island\/","title":{"rendered":"Crete Island"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>About Crete Island:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It is the <strong>largest island in Greece<\/strong> and the fifth largest one <strong>in the Mediterranean Sea.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>It is located in the <strong>southern part of the Aegean Sea<\/strong> (an arm of the Mediterranean Sea).<\/li>\n<li>It is <strong>bordered by<\/strong> the <strong>Sea of Crete<\/strong> in the north, the <strong>Libyan Sea<\/strong> in the south, the <strong>Myrtoan Sea <\/strong>in the west, and the <strong>Carpathian Sea<\/strong> in the east.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>It covers an area of 8,336 sq. km.<\/li>\n<li>It is relatively long and narrow, stretching for about 260 km east-west and about 60 km at its widest point.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>The island is <strong>dominated by rugged mountains<\/strong> that crisscross from west to east.\n<ul>\n<li>The <strong>highest point<\/strong> on the island is <strong>Mt. Ida,<\/strong> also <strong>known as Psiloritis<\/strong>, at 2,456 m.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>History:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The island of Crete has been <strong>inhabited since<\/strong> the <strong>Paleolithic Age<\/strong> by early hominids.<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>earliest advanced European<\/strong> civilization, the <strong>Minoan Civilization<\/strong>, started on the island <strong>around 2700-1420 BCE<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The Minoan civilization ended after a major earthquake, and thereafter, the island\u2019s rule was <strong>taken over by the Mycenaean civilization<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The island was then subsequently ruled by the <strong>Romans, the Byzantines<\/strong>, the <strong>Andalusians<\/strong>, the <strong>Venetians<\/strong>, and the <strong>Ottomans<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>After the island\u2019s independence from Ottoman <\/strong>rule, Crete <strong>became a part of Greece.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>During the Second World War, the island was <strong>occupied by the Nazi German force<\/strong>s and also served as the battleground of the famous \u201cBattle of Crete.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1: Which countries border the Mediterranean Sea?<\/h3>\n<p>22 countries and one territory (Gibraltar &#8211; a British Overseas Territory) have coasts on the Mediterranean Sea. The European Countries are Spain, France, Italy, Malta, Monaco, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, and Greece. The West Asian (Middle Eastern) countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea are Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, the Palestine Gaza Strip and the divided island of Cyprus. Five North African nations have coasts on the Mediterranean Sea: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/arkeonews.net\/a-big-round-4000-year-old-stone-building-discovered-on-a-cretan-hilltop\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">A Big, Round, 4,000-Year-Old Stone Building Discovered on a Cretan Hilltop<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Crete Island is the largest island in Greece and the fifth largest one in the Mediterranean Sea. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":24158,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-24157","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}