Dodecanese of the major islands under Italian rule back to twelve. Thus, when the Greek press began agitating for the cession of the islands to Greece in 1913, the term used was still the "Dodecanese". The Italian occupation authorities helped to establish the term when they named the islands under their control "Rhodes and the Dodecanese" ("Rodi e Dodecaneso"), adding Leipsoi to the list of the major islands to make up for considering Rhodes separately. By 1920, the name had become firmly established for the entire island group, a fact acknowledged by the Italian government when it appointed the islands' first
Boundaries between the continents of Earth that it is usually associated with Asia and/or the Middle East, as in the World Factbook and the United Nations geoscheme, but the Republic of Cyprus was nevertheless admitted to the Council of Europe in 1961 and joined the EU in 2004. The northern part of the island functions as the unrecognized (except by Turkey) Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The Greek North Aegean Islands and the Dodecanese lie on the coast of the Asian part of Turkey (on the Asian continental shelf). Thus, generally, these island groups could be considered a part of Asia. More specifically, the small islands