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Crete, is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, with Chania being its second largest city.

Chania appears to have been inhabited since the Neolithic era. The first major wave of settlers from mainland Greece was by the Dorian Greeks who came around 1100 BC. In 69 BC, the Roman consul Caecilius Metellus defeated the Cretans and conquered Kydonia to which he granted the privileges of an independent city-state. Kydonia reserved the right to mint its own coins until the 3rd century AD.

The early Christian period under Byzantine rule (First Byzantine Period, 395–824 AD) and the rule of the Arabs, who called the settlement Al Hanim ("the Inn"), are not well documented. Under the Arabs, the Christian population was persecuted and moved to the mountains. The Byzantine Empire retook the city in 961 AD (Second Byzantine Period, until 1204 AD).

In 1252 the Venetians managed to subdue the Cretans but in 1263, their rivals of Genoa, with local support, seized the city under the leadership of Enrico Pescatore, count of Malta, and held it until 1285, when the Venetians returned. The city of Chania during the period that followed was a blend of Byzantine, Venetian, and Classical Greek cultural elements.

The Ottoman army overran the city in 1645 after just two months' siege. Public baths (hamam), and fountains were a feature of the Ottoman city. The pasha of Crete resided in Chania.

In 1821, as Greeks rose against the Ottoman Empire, there were conflicts between Greeks and Muslims in Chania, leading to casualties from both sides, most of whom were Muslims.There was no Muslim population left after the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1922.

In 1908 Venizelos managed to establish a revolutionary government, recognized by the Great Powers. His later election as the prime minister of Greece (1910) eventually led to Crete's union with Greece on 1 December 1913, following the Balkan Wars. The Greek flag was raised for the first time at Fort Firka in the Old Harbour.

Another important period for the city of Chania was the invasion and occupation by German forces during World War II.

The city of Chania was slowly regaining its normal pace of development since the 1950s.

Rhodes is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of land area and also the island group's historical capital.

Rhodes' nickname is The island of the Knights, named after the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, who once conquered the land.

Historically, Rhodes was famous worldwide for the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The Medieval Old Town of the City of Rhodes has been declared a World Heritage Site. Today, it is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe.

The island was inhabited in the Neolithic period. In the 16th century BC, the Minoans came to Rhodes.

In the 15th century BC, Mycenaean Greeks invaded. After the Bronze Age collapse, the first renewed outside contacts were with Cyprus.

In the 8th century BC, the island's settlements started to form, with the coming of the Dorians, who built the three important cities of Lindos, Ialyssos and Kameiros, which together with Kos, Cnidus and Halicarnassus (on the mainland) made up the so-called Dorian Hexapolis (Greek for six cities).

The Persians invaded and overran the island, but they were in turn defeated by forces from Athens in 478 BC.

Rhodes then became a part of the growing empire of Alexander the Great in 332 BC, after he defeated the Persians.

Throughout the 3rd century BC, Rhodes attempted to secure her independence and her commerce, most especially her virtual control over the grain trade in the eastern Mediterranean.

In 395 with the division of the Roman Empire, the long Byzantine period began for Rhodes.

In 1306–1310, the Byzantine era of the island's history came to an end when the island was occupied by the Knights Hospitaller.Under the rule of the newly named "Knights of Rhodes", the city was rebuilt into a model of the European medieval ideal.

The strong walls which the knights had built withstood the attacks of the Sultan of Egypt in 1444, and a siege by the Ottomans under Mehmed II in 1480. Eventually, however, Rhodes fell to the large army of Suleiman the Magnificent in December 1522.

After World War I, the island, together with the rest of the Dodecanese, was officially assigned to Italy in the Treaty of Lausanne. It then became the core of their possession of the Isole Italiane dell'Egeo.

On 8 May 1945 the Germans under Otto Wagener surrendered Rhodes as well as the Dodecanese as a whole to the British, who soon after then occupied the islands as a military protectorate.

In 1947, Rhodes, together with the other islands of the Dodecanese, was united with Greece.