Karydi (Greek: Καρύδι), officially Καρύδιον (Σητείας), is a village in the highlands of east Crete, Greece, part of the municipal unit Itanos.

The Greek-speaking population is on the move from the country to the city, from the hill villages, which in many cases are closing down, to the ports and the plains.

In addition to making wine and oil, herding sheep and growing fruits and vegetables, they cater to the tourist business, resulting in an increase of summer populations in villages otherwise abandoned or nearly so.

[7][ii] By chance a plaque of the times embossed with a walnut tree was found at Koutsounara, which might be hypothesized to be a heraldic symbol.

Its geology features parallel rows of NE-SW trending hills or low mountains up to a few thousand feet, mostly less, broken by cross-ravines draining to the ocean or the nearest valley.

The heights are abandoned except that in the late 20th and early 21st centuries scattered wind and solar farms have been placed there by the Public Power Corporation.

The easternmost row of elevations in Crete is the Coastal Hill Range, which sits partly in the Srait of Kasos.

Between the two is the valley of the intermittent Rema Pentelis,[12] where Rema means "river," which flows for about 17 km (11 mi)[iii] due north from the vicinity of the highland plateaus of the Zakros mountains called Handros and Armeni (hence Handro-Armeni valley) after the settlements, about opposite Azali to the Bay of Sitia just east of Sitia.

In 2015 the Siteia mountains were defined to be Sitia UNESCO Global Geopark[10] to protect its gorges, its 170 caves, and its numerous plant and animal fossils.