[4] Along with numerous smaller uninhabited offshore islets (the largest of which are Sýrna and Ofidoussa), it forms the Municipality of Astypalaia, which is part of the Kalymnos regional unit.

The island is known in Italian as Stampalia and in Ottoman Turkish as İstanbulya (استانبوليه) The coasts of Astypalaia are rocky with many small pebble-strewn beaches.

[9] It was only shortly before this raid that the Venetian nobleman Giovanni Querini had purchased the island, declared himself its lord, and built a castle and a palace there.

On April 12, 1912, during the Italo-Turkish War, a detachment of the Regia Marina landed on Astypalaia, which thus became the first island of the Dodecanese to be occupied by Italy.

A single tusk of a large dwarf elephant belonging to the genus Palaeoloxodon, probably representing an endemic species, was excavated from the island during the 1990s.

The modern town of Chora occupies the same site, and worked stones from ancient monuments are reused in older houses as well as the castle.

One case contains intact pottery, bronze weapons, and stone tools from a pair of richly furnished Mycenaean chamber tombs excavated at Armenochori (approximately 0.5 km (0.3 mi) west of the chapel of Agios Panteleimonas).

Since 2000, a team from University College London has undertaken systematic study of these remains and those of a contemporary cemetery for adults and older children excavated at Katsalos nearby.

[13] The well-preserved mosaic floor of an early Christian basilica, decorated with geometric designs, lies underneath the chapel of Agia Varvara about 700 meters north of the small port of Analipsi (Maltezana).

Its mosaic floors, including a Helios surrounded by the signs of the Zodiac, have been reburied by the Greek Archaeological Service (as of 9/2013), but photographs are on display at the museum.

Mosaic floor fragments remain in situ at the ruined early Christian basilicas of Karekli (Schoinountas) and Agios Vasilios (south of Livadi).