Colossus of Rhodes in the context of "The Rhodes Colossus"

Rhodes (/roʊdz/ ; Greek: Ρόδος, romanized: Ródos [ˈroðos]) is the largest of Greece's Dodecanese islands and their historical capital; it is the ninth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Administratively, Rhodes constitutes a separate municipality within the Rhodes regional unit, which is part of the South Aegean administrative region. The principal town of the island and seat of the municipality is the city of Rhodes, home to its 50,636 inhabitants according to its 2011 census. By 2022, the island’s population had grown to 125,113 people. Located northeast of Crete and southeast of Athens, Rhodes is often referred to by several nicknames: the "Island of the Sun" after its patron sun god Helios; "The Pearl Island"; and "The Island of the Knights", a reference to the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, who ruled the island from 1310 to 1522.

Historically, Rhodes was famous 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. During the early 21st century the island was one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe.

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, also known as the Seven Wonders of the World or simply the Seven Wonders, is a list of seven notable structures present during classical antiquity, first established in the 1572 publication Octo Mundi Miracula using a combination of historical sources.

The seven traditional wonders established by the Octo Mundi Miracula are the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Temple of Artemis, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Using modern-day countries, two of the wonders were located in Greece, two in Turkey, two in Egypt, and one in Iraq. Of the seven wonders, only the Pyramid of Giza, which is also by far the oldest of the wonders, remains standing, while the others have been destroyed over the centuries. Remains exist from the Lighthouse, Temple of Artemis and the Mausoleum – either in situ or in museums. There is scholarly debate over the exact nature of the Hanging Gardens, and there is doubt as to whether they existed at all.

Various lists of the Wonders of the World have been compiled from antiquity to the present day, in order to catalogue the world's most spectacular natural features and human-built structures.

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World is the oldest known list of this type, documenting the most iconic and remarkable human-made creations of classical antiquity; the canonical list was established in the 1572 Octo Mundi Miracula, based on classical sources which varied widely. The classical sources only include works located around the Mediterranean rim and in the ancient Near East. The number seven was chosen because the Greeks believed it represented perfection and plenty, and because it reflected the number of planets known in ancient times (five) plus the Sun and Moon.

Rhodes (/roʊdz/ ; Greek: Ρόδος, Ródos [ˈroðos]) is the principal city and a former municipality on the island of Rhodes in the Dodecanese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it is part of the municipality Rhodes, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit. It has a population of approximately 56,000 with nearly 90,000 in its metropolitan area. Rhodes has been famous since antiquity as the site of Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The citadel of Rhodes, built by the Hospitallers, is one of the best-preserved medieval towns in Europe. The Medieval city is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Today, the city of Rhodes is an important Greek urban center and popular international tourist destination.

Octo Mundi Miracula is a series of engravings published in 1572 by the Flemish engraver Philips Galle, based on a set of eight drawings by Dutch painter Maarten van Heemskerck, with accompanying elegiac couplet verses written by Hadrianus Junius. Heemskerck's primary source was Pedro Mexía's 1540 Silva de varia lección, which noted how the classical sources for the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World do not agree on a consistent list.

The series is considered the first known complete visual representation of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and created the modern canonical list of seven wonders – the specific list had not existed in the various classical sources. Despite creating the modern canonical seven, the engravings included an eighth monument—the Colosseum—following van Heemskerck's 1533 Self-Portrait with the Colosseum.

The Ryukyu Disposition (琉球処分, Ryūkyū shobun; Okinawan:Ruucuu-sjubn), also called the Ryukyu Annexation (琉球併合, Ryūkyū heigō) or the annexation of Okinawa, was the political process during the early years of the Meiji period that saw the incorporation of the former Ryukyu Kingdom into the Empire of Japan as Okinawa Prefecture (i.e., one of Japan's "home" prefectures) and its decoupling from the Chinese tributary system. These processes began with the creation of the Ryukyu Domain in 1872 and culminated in the kingdom's annexation and final dissolution in 1879; immediate diplomatic fallout and consequent negotiations with Qing China, brokered by Ulysses S. Grant, effectively came to an end late the following year. The term is also sometimes used more narrowly in relation to the events and changes of 1879 alone. The Ryūkyū Disposition has been "alternatively characterized as aggression, annexation, national unification, or internal reform".

Chares of Lindos (/ˈkɛəriːz/; Ancient Greek: Χάρης ὁ Λίνδιος, gen.: Χάρητος; before 305 BC – c.280 BC) was a Greek sculptor born on the island of Rhodes. He was a pupil of Lysippos. Chares constructed the Colossus of Rhodes in 282 BC, an enormous bronze statue of the sun god Helios and the patron god of Rhodes. The statue was built to commemorate Rhodes' victory over the invading Macedonians in 305 BC, led by Demetrius I, son of Antigonus, a general under Alexander the Great.Also attributed to Chares was a colossal head that was brought to Rome and dedicated by P. Lentulus Spinther on the Capitoline Hill in 57 BC (Pliny, Natural History XXXIV.18).

The Colossus of Rhodes is one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and was considered Chares's greatest accomplishment, until its destruction in an earthquake in 226 BC.