Geography
Document Actions
It has a total land area of 96 km2 and includes a coastline of 69 km. It is situated at the south end of the Cyclades island group, 130 nautical miles from Piraeus and 70 nautical miles from Crete (Huber 2004).
Santorini is a crescent-shaped land mass with its western coastline ending abruptly at a sheer-faced caldera. The caldera is part of a large basin that covers approximately 83 km2, with varying depths of elevation ranging between 300 to 600 meters (Huber 2004). The caldera walls of Santorini are very steep while the relief at the northern, eastern and southern parts of the island becomes flatter and smoother. The depth of the water in the caldera ring varies from 38 meters to 290 meters. The north-south caldera axis is 11 km long and its E-W axis is 7.5 km long, while its surface area is 83 km2 (Baseline 3).
To the west of Santorini the smaller inhabited island of Thirasia exists. The ring formed by these two islands and the uninhabited island of Aspronissi outlines the former borders of the full caldera of the volcano that dominated the area 3,600 years ago (Huber 2004).
Profitis Ilias, a 2000 Natura site and Santorini’s highest point at 556 meters, is located southeast of the island. Other peaks on the island include Gavrilos to the south, Megalo Vouno to the north and Mikros Profitis Ilias to the north of Imerovigli, all ranging between 300 and 400 meters in height (Huber 2004).
------------------------------------------------
| Source: | "Santorini: Sustainable Regional Development 2004; regional planning of the islands of Thera and Therasia Phase A: Analysis" |
| Pages: | pp. 151-152 |
| Written by: | - Michael Romanos - Carla Chifos - Francis P. Wray - Frank Russell - Menelaos Triantafillou and students: E. Crisanti, C. Freese, H. Fulmer, E. Huber, E. Lopez-Stickney, A. Meyer, M. Steele, H. Wadih, N. Luehmann. |
| University of Cincinnati School of Planning. | |
| To download the entire analysis and/or learn more about the University of Cincinnati: | http://www.therafoundation.org/articles/copy_of_University%20of%20Cincinnati/ |