Dia also pronounced locally as Ntia (Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

: Ντία), is an island off the northern coast of the Greek

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

 island of Crete

Crete

Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...

. The island is approximately 7 nautical miles north of Heraklion. Dia is administered from Gouves

Gouves

Gouves is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France.-Geography:A farming village situated west of Arras, at the junction of the D56 and C5 roads, in the valley of the small river Gy.-Population:...

 in Heraklion

Heraklion

Heraklion, or Heraclion is the largest city and the administrative capital of the island of Crete, Greece. It is the 4th largest city in Greece....

, by the municipality of Elias.

Islet morphology

The islet looks like a giant lizard when viewed from the city of Heraklion. There is also a legend that a giant lizard tried to destroy the island of Crete, but Zeus turned it in to stone with a thunderbolt, thus creating the island.

Mythology

The island is visible from Crete's capital city of Heraklion, as it would have been in the time of the Minoan

Minoan civilization

The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age civilization that arose on the island of Crete and flourished from approximately the 27th century BC to the 15th century BC. It was rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th century through the work of the British archaeologist Arthur Evans...

 kingdom, from the capital of Knossos

Knossos

Knossos , also known as Labyrinth, or Knossos Palace, is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and probably the ceremonial and political centre of the Minoan civilization and culture. The palace appears as a maze of workrooms, living spaces, and store rooms close to a central square...

. Because of this, it was sometimes identified as the island that Theseus

Theseus

For other uses, see Theseus Theseus was the mythical founder-king of Athens, son of Aethra, and fathered by Aegeus and Poseidon, both of whom Aethra had slept with in one night. Theseus was a founder-hero, like Perseus, Cadmus, or Heracles, all of whom battled and overcame foes that were...

 escaped to after killing the Minotaur

Minotaur

In Greek mythology, the Minotaur , as the Greeks imagined him, was a creature with the head of a bull on the body of a man or, as described by Roman poet Ovid, "part man and part bull"...

.

Environmentally protected

On Dia there are a number of protected creatures including: the snail Albinaria

Albinaria

Albinaria is a genus of air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the family Clausiliidae, the door snails.- Distribution :Distribution of the genus Albinaria include:* southern Albania* Greece* Cyprus...

 retusa, the lizard Pdarcis erchardii schiebeli, the wild rabbit Oryctolagus cuniculus cnossius, and the eagle called mavropetritis (in the Greek language). Dia is part of the European Network of Nature (Natura) 2000 and is a vetted hunting ground. There are also a number of protected plants such as Carlina diae.

Ancient port

In 1976, Jacques Cousteau carried out underwater exploration around Dia and found the remains of an ancient port in the waters between Heraklion and Dia.