What Is Kimolos Known For?

Kimolos takes its name directly from the mineral that shaped its economy for thousands of years, and that same chalk still colors the island's beaches white today.

Kimolos is known first for its chalk, from the Greek word kimolia, a soft clay rock mined here since prehistoric times and known historically as Kimolia Gee, or Kimolian Earth. The ancient Greek philosopher Theophrastus documented its use as early as the 4th century BC, when the clay's natural properties made it valuable for degreasing wool and cloth, a trade that carried Kimolian Earth across the wider Mediterranean world.

The island's volcanic origins gave it far more than chalk, though. Kimolos ranks among Greece's leading producers of bentonite, a clay mineral used in everything from construction and cosmetics to food processing, and the island's deposits helped make Greece the world's third largest producer of the mineral by the mid-1990s. Perlite, pozzolan, kaolin, and zeolite round out a mineral wealth tied directly to the island's volcanic past, with active mining still ongoing near Prassa, where the pale, powdery landscape around the quarry gives the region an almost snow-covered look despite sitting in the middle of the Aegean.

That same geology shaped Kimolos's coastline, since the pale sand at Prassa Beach comes directly from the chalk-rich rock beneath it, and Skiadi, a striking mushroom-shaped volcanic rock formation in the island's northwest, has been recognized as part of the Atlas of Geological Monuments of the Aegean for how dramatically wind and sea erosion have carved it over time.

Kimolos connects most easily to Milos by a short ferry crossing, a fitting link given that both islands share the same volcanic mineral wealth that has shaped their economies for centuries.