Kérkyra

Corfu stands off western Greece as the northernmost island on that coast apart from its small Diapontian satellites. Together they mark the maritime divide between the Ionian Sea to the south and the Adriatic to the north. In the fifth century BCE, ancient Korkyra ranked with Athens and Corinth among the three great naval powers of Greece. Its fleet fought at Sybota, a battle that Thucydides called the greatest between Greek city-states to that time and a catalyst for the Peloponnesian War.

Temples and other remains of the ancient city survive at Palaiopolis, recalling the island’s early urban centre. Corfu’s medieval and early modern history turned around sea power and defence. As part of the Venetian state from 1204, it repeatedly repelled Ottoman sieges and became one of Europe’s most heavily fortified places, a bulwark guarding the Adriatic approach.

Two castles enclosed the capital, making it the only Greek city surrounded in this way. British rule followed the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. The Ionian Academy, founded here in 1824, was among the first universities of the modern Greek world. Sheltered anchorages, high ground and layered defences sustained a society shaped by fleets, trade and repeated contests for control.