About Kekova

Kekova is a small, uninhabited island off Turkey's Lycian coast near the town of Demre, covering barely 4.5 square kilometres yet lending its name to a much larger stretch of protected coastline. The wider Kekova region spans some 260 square kilometres and takes in the villages of Kaleköy, built over the ancient city of Simena, and Üçağız, once known as Teimioussa — both reachable only by boat or a long walk in, which has kept the area quiet and largely undeveloped. Behind that quiet sits a genuinely layered history: a Lycian settlement founded well over two thousand years ago, a Roman and Byzantine afterlife, an earthquake that put half of it underwater, and even a 20th-century border dispute that briefly put its ownership in question.

Lycian Origins and an Unlikely Border Dispute

The settlements around Kekova belonged to the Lycian federation, the alliance of city-states that governed this coast before Roman rule arrived. Simena, on the hill now occupied by Kaleköy, was represented within that federation by the larger city of Aperlai and kept its own identity even after the region passed to Rome. Archaeological remains at the site date back to at least the 4th century BC, including a small rock-cut theatre and a Roman-era bath complex whose surviving inscription dedicates it to the emperor Titus.

Kekova's history took a stranger turn in the 20th century. After Italy occupied the nearby island of Kastellorizo in 1912 and stationed a small garrison on Kekova — until then used mainly by locals for seasonal wood-cutting — the island's sovereignty became a point of dispute between Rome and Ankara. The matter was settled by the Convention between Italy and Turkey, signed in Ankara in 1932, which assigned Kekova to Turkey along with most of the surrounding islets, while Italy retained Kastellorizo itself and a few smaller islands closer to it.

The Sunken City of Dolichiste

The ruins that give Kekova its fame lie along the island's northern shore, facing Kaleköy, and belong to the ancient town the Greeks called Dolichiste. A powerful earthquake in the 2nd century AD dropped part of the settlement below sea level, and boat passengers today can still make out sunken staircases, house foundations, harbour walls and water cisterns beneath the surface, some just a metre or two down. Above the waterline, the remains continue with stone quays, rock-cut buildings and scattered sarcophagi along the shore.

Dolichiste did not disappear all at once — building work and amphora finds show it stayed inhabited into the Byzantine period, rebuilt after the earthquake before finally being abandoned by the 7th or 8th century as Arab raids swept the coast. Since 1990, the Turkish government has protected the whole Kekova region as a specially protected area; swimming, diving and anchoring are banned directly over the ruins to stop them being worn away, though boats are still allowed to cruise slowly above the site.

Kaleköy, Üçağız and Visiting Kekova Today

Kekova cannot be reached by road. The only way in is by sea or on foot along mountain paths, and that isolation is what has kept Kaleköy and Üçağız looking much as they must have decades ago — stone houses, a handful of jetties, and a medieval castle above Kaleköy built into the hillside where the ancient acropolis of Simena once stood. Üçağız, in turn, sits on the site of Teimioussa, a smaller Lycian port whose scattered sarcophagi still line the waterfront today.

That mix of clear water, protected coastline and ancient ruins close at hand is exactly which is why so many visitors explore Kekova by private gulet charter rather than trying to reach the area by road. A boat lets passengers drift slowly over the submerged ruins, swim in the surrounding bays where it is permitted, and put in at Kaleköy or Üçağız for a couple of hours without needing a rental car or a long drive down from Kaş or Demre.