Cunda Island

This article is about Cunda Island in Turkey, for Cunda in Hinduism.

Cunda Island viewed from the sea

View from a fish restaurant in Cunda Island

Cunda Island, also called Alibey Island, (Turkish: Cunda Adası, Alibey Adası; Greek: is the largest of a group of islands, formerly called Εκατόνησα Hekatonisa or Μοσχονήσια /Moshonisia in Greek). It is a small island in the northwestern Aegean Sea off the coast of Ayvalık, part of Balıkesir Province of Turkey, with an area of 23 km². It is located 16 km east of Lesbos, Greece.

Cunda is linked to Ayvalık on the mainland by a causeway. The island has a typical resort town, and a bus and ferry link to Ayvalık.

For some months in 1922, the island was the see of a Greek Orthodox metropolitan bishop, while the neoclassical mansion of the last metropolitan, Ambrosios, still survives on the seafront of the town's island. Following the Lausanne treaty (1923), the Greek population left for Greece and replaced with Muslims from Crete, Cretan Turks and Lesbos. The main landmark of Cunda remains the Taksiarchis church. The large, former Greek Orthodox cathedral was abandoned and dilapidated but is currently undergoing restoration.

Broken stairs at interior of Cunda Cathedral

Poroselene bay in the north of the island is probably the island’s major “sight.” In antiquity, it was the home of a dolphin who saved a drowning boy, mentioned by Pausanias.

In 2007, after a two-year-work, all 551 buildings in Cunda Island were inspected and registered by Turkish Science Academy and Yıldız Technical University Faculty of Architecture within the "Turkey Culture Inventory Project".

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See also

• List of islands of Turkey
• Aegean Islands
• Cunda Adası
• Cunda Adası
• Cunda Adasi Aradığınız Herşey