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
Dodecanese Greece. As a part of the 2011 Kallikratis reform, the prefecture was abolished, and its territory was divided into four regional units, within the South Aegean administrative region: The prefecture was subdivided into the following municipalities and communities. These have been reorganised at the 2011 Kallikratis reform as well. Until 1997, the Prefecture of the Dodecanese was subdivided into provinces: Local specialities of the Dodecanese include: Dodecanese The Dodecanese (, ; , "Dodekánisa" , literally "twelve islands") are a group of 15 larger plus 150 smaller Greek islands in the southeastern Aegean Sea, off the coast of Asia Minor (Turkey),