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Rang

White houses, blue domes of Santorini

Oia

A village on the rim of a drowned volcano, with whitewashed houses and blue-domed churches above the sea.

Coast of Oia, on the island of Thera, ( Santorini , Greece )
Photo: Meersan, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Why Oia is cycladic white

Oia sits at the northern tip of Santorini, on the edge of a crater flooded by the sea after a huge eruption about 3,600 years ago. Its houses, many dug into the soft volcanic cliff, are coated in white limewash, and its small churches have domes painted blue. Lime was cheap, reflected the summer heat and was valued as a disinfectant. It is often said that a government order of the late 1930s required island houses to be whitewashed for reasons of hygiene, and that later rules fixed the white and blue, the colours of the Greek flag. Before that, many houses were left the colour of the stone. Crowds gather each evening for the sunset.

Cycladic white#F7F7F4Dome blue#1F5FC2Aegean blue#2F6F9EVolcanic rock brown#6B4A3CBougainvillea pink#D6337A

Values are fair approximations of what the eye sees there, not measurements.

Colours tied to Oia

WhiteThe lightest colour, seen in snow, milk and chalk, and opposite to blackBlueA primary colour seen in the sky and sea, used since ancient times in art and dye
About this page

Written by the Rang desk with AI assistance. Background: "Oia, Greece" on Wikipedia. If you know Oia and we have it wrong, tell us.

More colour cities

All colour cities
🇮🇳 The White CityUdaipurWhite palaces and whitewashed houses stand around lakes in the Aravalli hills of southern Rajasthan.🇮🇳 Kolam white and Madras checksChennaiWhite kolam drawings at each doorstep, yellow autorickshaws, red colonial brick and painted temple towers.🇮🇳 Fine florals on whiteSanganerA printing town on the edge of Jaipur, known for delicate flower motifs on a white ground.🇮🇳 City of the Taj MahalAgraThe white marble of the Taj Mahal shifts from pink at dawn to gold at dusk, beside forts of red sandstone.🇱🇰 The white fort townGalleA walled colonial town on Sri Lanka's south coast, with white churches, a white lighthouse and ochre villas.🇧🇹 Valley of white fortresses and red chilliesParoWhite-walled monasteries with a red band under the roof stand above rice fields in a Himalayan valley.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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