Alonissos

Alonissos is the easternmost inhabited island of the Northern Sporades, lying in the Aegean Sea about 3 kilometres east of Skopelos. The island stretches roughly 20 kilometres from southwest to northeast and covers an area of around 64 square kilometres, its limestone hills covered in pine forest and terraced groves of almonds, figs, grapes and olives.

The island's history took a sharp turn on 9 March 1965, when a powerful earthquake devastated the old hilltop capital, known locally as Chora. Most residents were relocated to Patitiri, a small bay on the southeastern coast that has served as the island's main port and de facto capital ever since; Chora itself was later restored and today functions largely as a picturesque residential and tourist quarter. As of the 2021 census, the municipality of Alonissos counted 3,138 residents.

Alonissos has no airport, so many gulet cruises in Greece call in here by sea, arriving on the ferries, catamarans and hydrofoils that connect Patitiri with the mainland ports of Volos, Agios Konstantinos and Thessaloniki, as well as the neighbouring islands of Skiathos, Skopelos and Skyros.

The island is best known for the waters around it. In 1992, a presidential decree established the National Marine Park of Alonissos and Northern Sporades, the first marine park in Greece and, at roughly 2,260 square kilometres, still the largest marine protected area in Europe. Besides Alonissos itself, the park encompasses six smaller islands — Peristera, Kyra Panagia, Psathoura, Piperi, Skantzoura and Gioura — along with 22 uninhabited islets and rocky outcrops. It exists chiefly to protect the Mediterranean monk seal, one of the rarest marine mammals on Earth, with fewer than 700 individuals believed to survive worldwide, alongside the rare seabirds and dolphins that also inhabit these waters.