Corfu is located at the crossroads of the trade routes of the Mediterranean. Because the island is blessed with a Mediterranean climate, it was many times the focus of interest of various conquerors. In mythology it was the island of the Phaeacians, where Odysseus met Nausicaa.

The island has been inhabited since the Paleolithic Era.
The first occupation was by the Eretrians and then by the Corinthians, who named the island Korkyra, which was the name of the daughter of Asopus, god of rivers.

The emblem of Corfu still remains, throughout the centuries, the "abyssal ship", a symbol of the nautical skill of the Phaeacians.

In the philological sources we find it under various names, such as Sheria (according to Homer), Drepani or Arpi, Makri, Kassopaea, Argos, Keraunia, Phaeakia, Korkyra or Corfu (Doric), Gorgo or Gorgyra and much later Koryfo or Korfoi, six due to the two characteristic top rocks of the Old Fortress.

In historical times it was part of the culture of Ancient Greece and it was also conquered by the Romans like the rest of Greece. It then became a part of the Byzantine Empire, while after the first fall of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204, various conquerors passed through the island: Normans, Audagians, Venetians, French, Russians and British. It was never conquered by the Turks. On May 21, 1864, Corfu and all the Ionian Islands joined Greece.

Source: University of Crete
http://www.edc.uoc.gr/