Old town of Corfu
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How it came to be
The roots of the old town of Corfu go back to the 8th century BC. According to Thucydides, ancient Korkyra was one of the three great naval powers of 5th-century BC Greece, alongside Athens and Corinth. From the Middle Ages the town was known as Kastropolis, castle city, for its two castles.
Venice ruled Corfu from 1386, and forts built by Venetian engineers defended its maritime trade against the Ottoman Empire for about four centuries. The town withstood four notable sieges, in 1537, 1571, 1573 and 1716. UNESCO attributes the fortifications to the architect Sanmicheli.
The Treaty of Campo Formio handed Corfu to France in 1797, and in 1815 it became the seat of the British protectorate of the United States of the Ionian Islands. On 21 May 1864 the islands were united with Greece. ICOMOS found that about 70% of the town's pre-20th-century buildings date from the British period, and the old town was inscribed as a World Heritage site in 2007.
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