Located north of the entrance of Dardanelles Strait, in the Aegean Sea (11 nautical miles from the Gallipoli Peninsula), Gökçeada (named under 29 July 1970 Imbros) is the largest island of Turkey, and has a population of 8,776 (2016). The island was primarily inhabited by ethnic Greeks from ancient times through to approximately the 1960s, and today is predominantly inhabited by settlers from the Turkish mainland.
The only town of the island is Çınarlı (also known as "Gökçeada" or "Merkez" meaning "center"). The villages were built on hills or considerably away from the sea to avoid the pirate raids of the past.
The island is mainly of volcanic origin and the highest mountain of the island İlyas Dağ, is an extinct cone-shaped stratovolcano. It has a Mediterranean climate with warm and dry summers, and wet and cool winters.
In classical antiquity, Imbros was an Athenian cleruchy, a colony whose settlers retained Athenian citizenship. Ruled subsequent by Genoese and and Byzantine, it became Ottoman soil in 1455 and was administered by Ottomans and Venetians at various times. Since 1912 was under the administration of the Greek navy, but in 1923 western powers signed the Treaty of Lausanne with the new Turkish Republic, and the island become turkish. Massive scale persecution against the local Greek element started in 1961, such as of 2015, only 318 Greeks remained on the island.
About the stamp
The stamp is part of a set of 8 promoting Turkish tourism, issued on April 30, 2012.
References
Imbros - Wikipedia
Sender: Ana
Sent from Gökçeada (Marmara Region / Turkey), on 02.10.2017
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