Lemnos Island (Myrina, Greece)

Lemnos Island (port locode GRMYR), aka Limnos Island, is located in the northern Aegean Sea and is part of Greece's North Aegean region. Myrina is the island's main port and principal town with population around 6,000.

The island has total area approx 477 km2 (184 mi2), ranking it as Greece's 8th-largest. Lemnos Island (Myrina) is connected by regularly scheduled daily ferries departing from Athens/Piraeus, Lavrion, Kavala, Thessaloniki. Since May 2026, Lemnos is directly linked to Canakkale (Turkey) via a 2,5 hour ferry service.

Lemnos is mostly flat and has 30+ sand beaches. Its west, and especially the northwest part, is mountainous, with the highest elevation (Mt Vigla) 470 m. The island's main towns are Myrina (on the western coast) and Moudros (in the large bay on the south-central coast), plus around 30 villages. This island province also includes Agios Efstratios island (to the southwest), featuring great sand beaches. On Lemnos is also one of Europe's 16 deserts.

After the Red Army's victory in the Russian Civil War (1917-1922), many Kuban Cossacks fled Russia to avoid Bolshevik persecution. Among the evacuation points was Lemnos, where around 18,000 Cossacks arrived by ship. Sadly, many of them soon died of diseases and starvation, and the rest left the island after a year.

Lemnos serves as inspiration for the fictional island nation "Altis" in the 2013 PC video game ArmA 3, created by Czech developers Bohemia Interactive. The layout of the isle's roads, settlements and landscape closely resembles that of its real counterpart and several of the city's landmarks, like the theatre at Hephaistia, the fortress at Myrina, and the windmills close to Kontias, are recreated in the computer game.

Lemnos Island cruise terminal