Itanos is a former municipality in the Lasithi

Lasithi

Lasithi is the easternmost regional unit on the island of Crete, to the east of Heraklion. Its capital is Agios Nikolaos, the other major towns being Ierapetra, Sitia and Neapoli. The mountains include the Dikte to the west and the Sitia Mountains to the east...

 peripheral unit, eastern Crete

Crete

Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...

, Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Siteia, of which it is a municipal unit. Its territory is rich in ancient archaeological sites, notably a Minoan city in Roussolakkos

Roussolakkos

Roussolakkos is the site of an important Minoan city, located near to Palekastro, Crete. It is the only Minoan city to have survived intact. Its harbor, outlying settlements, sanctuaries and quarries are preserved under sediments accumulating over more than 2,000 years...

 and the ancient Greek city Itanos

Itanos (city)

Itanos was an ancient Greek city in Crete. Its ruins are now visible in Erimopolis, in the modern district of Itanos.Herodotos is the first Greek historian we know who mentioned Itanos....

 in Erimopolis. The Minoan

Minoan civilization

The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age civilization that arose on the island of Crete and flourished from approximately the 27th century BC to the 15th century BC. It was rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th century through the work of the British archaeologist Arthur Evans...

 settlement was called Utana (cf. Linear B

Linear B

Linear B is a syllabic script that was used for writing Mycenaean Greek, an early form of Greek. It pre-dated the Greek alphabet by several centuries and seems to have died out with the fall of Mycenaean civilization...

 U-ta-ni-yo [KN E 749]). Herodotus

Herodotus

Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...

 recorded that the settlers from Thera (modern Santorini

Santorini

Santorini , officially Thira , is an island located in the southern Aegean Sea, about southeast from Greece's mainland. It is the largest island of a small, circular archipelago which bears the same name and is the remnant of a volcanic caldera...

) who founded Cyrene

Cyrene

Cyrene may refer to:* Cyrene , a Greek mythological figure* Cyrene, Libya, an ancient Greek colony in North Africa* USS Cyrene , a motor torpedo boat tender* 133 Cyrene, an asteroid...

 owed their knowledge of the coast to an Itanian trader named Corobios.

Population 2,514 (2001). The seat of the municipality was in Palaikastro.