- Where
- Cyclades, southern Aegean Sea,
Greece - Coordinates
- 36.42° N
25.43° E (Fira) - Population
- 15,480 (2021 census)
- Area
- About 73 km² (the main island)
- The eruption
- About 3,600 years ago (Minoan)
- Getting there
- Santorini (Thira) airport,
about 6 km from Fira; ferries and cruise ships - Access limits
- One footpath and part of the old port
closed to 31 March 2027 (FEK B’ 2332/2026) - Advisory
- Greece Level 1
exercise normal precautions
White houses stacked down the inside of a cliff like sugar cubes somebody had tipped out and forgotten, with blue domes among them, and far below a dark island lying in the middle of the water, sulking. At sunset everyone on the rim turned to face the same way and went quiet. I did too. The wine came from vines coiled on the ground like sleeping cats.
The short answer
Santorini, officially Thira, is a Greek island in the southern Aegean, with an area of about 73 square kilometres and 15,480 people at the 2021 census, Wikipedia records; with the smaller islands round it, the land area is 90 square kilometres. It is the largest of a circular archipelago that is the remnant of a volcanic caldera, and its inner coast is a sheer precipice of more than 300 metres at its highest. Fira, the seat of the municipality, stands on the rim; its own Wikipedia article puts the caldera cliff there at 400 metres. The name Santorini is a contraction of Saint Irene, after an old church in the village of Perissa; the ancient name, Thera, comes from Theras, the leader of the Spartans who colonised the island. An estimated two million tourists visit each year.
Why it's worth knowing
The eruption. About 3,600 years ago, at the height of the Minoan civilisation, an eruption on the island expelled 61 cubic kilometres of magma and rock, Wikipedia records; it lasted for weeks, caused great tsunami waves, and left a deposit of white tephra up to 60 metres thick. The caldera it left filled with the sea. Eruptions have since built the Kameni islands in the middle of it, the most recent ending in 1950.
A town kept under the ash. Akrotiri, near the island’s southern tip, was a Bronze Age settlement buried by the eruption in the sixteenth century BC, Wikipedia records; radiocarbon dating places the eruption most probably between 1620 and 1530 BC, and the article compares the town’s preservation to Pompeii’s. Spyridon Marinatos began the modern excavation in 1967, and Christos Doumas led it after his death in 1975. The town had paved streets, an extensive drainage system and buildings of up to three storeys. Only one gold object has been found, hidden under a floor, and no unburied human remains, which the article reads as a sign of an orderly evacuation. Its wall paintings, among them the Blue Monkeys found in 1969 and the Spring Fresco of 1970, are better preserved than those of Knossos.
The field notes
The swarm of 2025
An earthquake sequence between Santorini and Amorgos began about 27 January 2025 and intensified after 1 February, Wikipedia records. Around 6,000 residents left the island by ferry from 2 February, and up to 2,700 more by air on 3 and 4 February; schools closed on Santorini, Anafi, Amorgos and Ios; the Greek government declared a state of emergency on Santorini on 6 February and lifted it on 3 March. Access to some shorelines and ports, including the old port below Fira, was restricted for fear of tsunamis.
The rim, the port and the decree
Below Fira, cruise ships anchor in the small harbour between Nea Kameni and the town, and a zigzag footpath, climbed on foot or by donkey, and a cable car link the old port with the rim, Wikipedia’s article on Fira records. A Joint Ministerial Decision published in the Government Gazette on 27 April 2026 (ΦΕΚ Β’ 2332/27-4-2026), taken at the Thira mayor’s request because of the threatened risk of landslides, sets civil-protection measures from its publication until 31 March 2027: the footpath from Ammoudi, below Oia, to Cape Agios Nikolaos is closed to access; access to zone A of the old port of Fira is not allowed, though the rest of the port is open; and the municipal road down to Ammoudi is closed to vehicles, with exceptions, while the village itself and the path between Ammoudi and Oia stay open. The decision says the measures may be suspended or changed after strong geodynamic or weather events. In July 2026 a private wall beside the stepped path between the old port and Fira collapsed, and the path reopened on 3 August 2026, Cruise Industry News reported (indexed).
The caldera seen from Oia, 2019.
Photograph: Matthew Waring via Unsplash · Unsplash licence
The young lava of Nea Kameni, with the caldera rim across the water, September 2013.
Photograph: Olaf Tausch · Nea Kameni 40 · CC BY 3.0 · cropped
A bell tower above the caldera, Oia, 2020.
Photograph: Philip Jahn via Unsplash · Unsplash licence
A vine trained into a basket (kouloura) on Santorini's volcanic soil, April 2023.
Photograph: AkatsukiKuro · CC0
- Find a step facing the water well before sunset, and stay put afterwards, when everybody else leaves at once.
- Walk the cliff path from one village to the next before the heat is up. (I rested the list on a whitewashed wall to retie a lace, and it came away with a white edge. It now looks as though it lives here.)
- In the buried town, look up at the second floors, which have no business still being there, and are.
- The white houses on the cliff are people’s homes, and their roofs and terraces are not lookouts. Keep to the paths and the public steps.
- Drink a glass of the island’s wine at the place that made it, then go and greet the vines, which are lying down.
The kouloura vines. On Santorini the vines are trained low to the ground and woven, as they grow, into round baskets called kouloura, with the grapes hanging inside the ring, out of the wind and the sun, Wikipedia’s articles on the Assyrtiko grape and on the island’s wine record; the volcanic soil has kept out phylloxera, so many of the roots are centuries old. The traveller Theodore Bent, who saw them in January 1884, wrote that in winter each vineyard looked “as if hampers were placed all over it in rows”, as quoted in Wikipedia’s article on the island. They lie in the fields where they were planted.
Tally, in the marginI walked past a whole field of them, taking them for brushwood somebody had not yet got round to clearing. Then a grower lifted the edge of one and showed me the grapes inside, sitting out of the wind like eggs in a nest, and I went back along the row apologising to each basket in turn.
Getting there
How to get there. By air to Santorini (Thira) International Airport, north of the village of Kamari and about 6 kilometres south-east of the centre of Fira, Wikipedia records; it handled 2,418,219 passengers in 2025, 16 per cent fewer than the year before, and many of its international routes are seasonal. Ferries use the port of Athinios, where the decision of April 2026 sets controls on vehicle traffic; cruise ships anchor in the caldera below Fira.
When to go. The cruise-passenger fee is highest from June to September (below), and the access limits of April 2026 run until 31 March 2027 unless they are changed sooner.
What to arrange ahead. Parts of the caldera’s foot are closed until 31 March 2027: under the Joint Ministerial Decision published on 27 April 2026 (ΦΕΚ Β’ 2332/27-4-2026, read at e-nomothesia.gr on 20 October 2026), the Ammoudi–Cape Agios Nikolaos footpath is closed and zone A of Fira’s old port is off-limits. Cruise passengers pay a per-passenger fee at Santorini, introduced on 21 July 2025 and collected by the cruise lines: €20 from June to September, €12 in April, May and October and €4 from November to March, by reports of the government’s schedule (indexed). No official price for Akrotiri’s archaeological site could be read: the Ministry of Culture’s ticket pages did not open, and guides gave two different figures.
Safety. The State Department’s advisory for Greece is Level 1, “Exercise Normal Precautions”, dated 23 October 2025. Canada’s travel advice (updated 5 October 2026) says to take normal security precautions and that “Greece is located in an active seismic zone”, where major earthquakes could occur and cause significant damage; the UK’s travel advice also notes a risk of earthquakes and earth tremors. Greece’s civil-protection ministry publishes the measures in force on the island.
Mark this place
Common questions
Where is Santorini?
Santorini, officially Thira, is a Greek island in the Cyclades in the southern Aegean Sea, the largest of a circular group of islands that is the remnant of a volcanic caldera, Wikipedia records. Its main town is Fira.
When did the Santorini volcano erupt?
The great Minoan eruption of Santorini, Greece, happened about 3,600 years ago, Wikipedia records; radiocarbon dating places it most probably between 1620 and 1530 BC. The most recent eruptive activity, on the Kameni islands in the caldera, ended in 1950.
What is Akrotiri on Santorini?
Akrotiri is a Bronze Age town near the southern tip of Santorini, Greece, buried by the island’s eruption in the sixteenth century BC and excavated since 1967, first by Spyridon Marinatos, Wikipedia records. It kept paved streets, drains, buildings of up to three storeys and wall paintings.
What closures are in force on Santorini until 2027?
A Greek Joint Ministerial Decision published on 27 April 2026 (FEK B’ 2332/27-4-2026) closes the footpath from Ammoudi to Cape Agios Nikolaos on Santorini and zone A of Fira’s old port, and closes the road down to Ammoudi to most vehicles, until 31 March 2027, because of the risk of landslides.
What happened on Santorini in 2025?
An earthquake swarm between Santorini and Amorgos, Greece, began in late January 2025; around 6,000 residents left by ferry and up to 2,700 by air in early February, and a state of emergency ran from 6 February to 3 March, Wikipedia records.
Why is the island called Santorini?
The name Santorini is a contraction of Saint Irene, after an old church in the village of Perissa, Wikipedia records; the island’s official and ancient name, Thera or Thira, comes from Theras, the leader of the Spartans who colonised it.
How much is the cruise passenger fee on Santorini?
Since 21 July 2025, cruise passengers landing on Santorini, Greece, have paid a per-passenger fee collected by the cruise lines: €20 from June to September, €12 in April, May and October, and €4 from November to March, by reports of the Greek government’s schedule.
What wine is made on Santorini?
Santorini’s wines are based on the island’s own Assyrtiko grape, Wikipedia records, and its vinsanto is a dessert wine made from sun-dried Assyrtiko, Athiri and Aidani grapes; the vines are trained into low, spiralling baskets.