A long, narrow island marooned between Rhodes and Crete, wild Kárpathos has always been something of an underpopulated backwater, although it is the third largest of the Dodecanese. An habitually cloud-capped mountainous spine rises to over 1200m, and divides the more populous, lower-lying south from an exceptionally rugged north. A magnificent, windswept coastline of cliffs and promontories has begun to attract significant numbers of Scandinavian and German package tourists, who arrive on several direct international charters weekly. Since the 1990s, these clients have more or less monopolized several resorts in the southern part of the island, pushing independent travellers up to the remote north of the island. Despite this development, Kárpathos remains saddled with a deficient road system - only partly paved, unspeakable otherwise - and expensive taverna food, which offsets reasonable room prices. Most island-hoppers come here for a glimpse of the traditional village life in the far north, and for the numerous superb, secluded beaches.

 

The island's interior isn't the most alluring: the central and northern uplands were badly scorched by forest fires in the 1980s, and agriculture plays a slighter role than on any other Greek island of comparable size. The Karpathians are too well off to bother much with farming; massive emigration to America and the resulting remittance economy has transformed Kárpathos into one of the wealthiest Greek islands.

Kárpathos's four Classical cities figure little in ancient chronicles. Alone of the major Dodecanese, the island was held by the Genoese and Venetians after the Byzantine collapse and so has no castle of the crusading Knights of St John, nor any surviving medieval fortresses of consequence. The Ottomans couldn't be bothered to settle or even garrison it; instead they left a single judge or kadi at the main town, making the Greek population responsible for his safety during the many pirate attacks.