Ionian Islands top ten in Greece by number of international arrivals, with 1,386,289 international arrivals for 2012, with Corfu being the sixth airport by number of arrivals nationwide, with Zante and Cephalonia also being in the top ten. While Cephalonia Airport had the biggest increase nationwide by 13.11% compared to 2011, while Corfu had an increase of 6.31%."" Ionian Islands The Ionian Islands (Modern Greek: , ; Ancient Greek, Katharevousa: , ; ) are a group of islands in Greece. They are traditionally called the Heptanese, i.e. "the Seven Islands" (, "Heptanēsa" or , "Heptanēsos"; ), but the group includes many smaller
Venetian rule in the Ionian Islands the Ionian Islands. Because of its status, Italian was also taught at schools along with Greek and English (Ionian Islands were a protectorate of the United Kingdom from 1815 until 1864). In the First Year of the secondary education, for instance, Greek was taught four times a week, Italian three times and English twice. In the Greek Census of 1907, 4,675 people from the Ionian Islands stated Catholicism as their denomination, about 1.8% of the total population (254,494), while 2,541 (1%) Ionians stated Italian as their mother tongue, making it the second language by number of speakers. The Italian language