What Is Santorini Known For?

Santorini's entire shape exists because of a volcanic eruption so powerful it may have inspired one of history's most enduring myths, and the island's crescent form still traces the outline of that ancient catastrophe.

Santorini is known first for the Minoan eruption, which struck around 1600 BC and ranks among the most violent volcanic events ever recorded, comparable in scale to the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa. Before the eruption, the island, then called Strongili, meaning round, formed a single circular landmass. The blast collapsed the volcano's center, sending the surrounding land into the sea and creating the caldera and steep cliffs that define Santorini's coastline today, while ash from the explosion reportedly reached as far as Crete.

That eruption buried Akrotiri, a thriving Minoan port city discovered beneath layers of volcanic ash and pumice near the island's southern coast. Excavations beginning after 1967 revealed multi-story buildings, an organized drainage system, and elaborate painted frescoes, giving archaeologists a detailed look at Bronze Age life often compared to Pompeii, and unlike Pompeii, no human remains have been found at the site, suggesting residents evacuated before the volcano's final, most destructive phase.

Santorini is also known for its long-running association with the Atlantis myth, since Plato's description of a lost, advanced civilization destroyed suddenly by natural disaster shares real similarities with what happened to Akrotiri, a connection scholars continue to debate rather than confirm.

The volcano itself remains active today, though dormant, with its most recent eruption occurring in 1950 and a major earthquake striking Oia as recently as 1956, keeping Santorini's geological history a continuing rather than purely ancient story, connected by ferry to Thirasia and Crete across the surrounding waters.