Italian colonists in the Dodecanese colonists of Rhodes. In the Treaty of Paris in 1947, the islands were ceded to Greece. For the nearly 8,000 Italian colonists, after the Italian defeat in World War II, started a process of return to Italy and successive disappearance. The Dodecanese officially passed from Italy to Greece in 1947, and in that year all the Italian schools were closed. Some of the Italian colonists remained in Rhodes and were quickly assimilated. Actually only a few dozen old colonists remain, but the influence of their legacy is evident in the relative diffusion of the Italian language mainly in Rhodes and
Lakki, Leros Lakki, Leros Lakki (), population 1990, formerly Portolago (Πόρτο Λάγο), is a community on the Greek island of Leros, in the Dodecanese, at the head of Lakki Bay. The area was built up as the main base of the Italian Royal Navy in the Dodecanese starting in 1923. The town of Portolago was founded in the 1930s, under Italian rule, as a new model town, most of whose inhabitants were from the Italian military. After Leros was transferred to Greece in 1947, it was renamed Lakki. Like the rest of the Dodecanese, Leros was ruled by Italy from 1912-1943. The