Neapolis is a small town of eastern Crete sited in the middle of the valley of Mirabello province in the prefecture of Lasithi close to the ancient city of Dreros. Its first name was Karyes or Kares (meaning walnut trees), because of the many walnut trees that the valley had.

The valley is now full of olive trees and Neapolis produces much oil. The most significant offspring of Neapolis was Pope Alexander the 5th who lived during the period of the Venetian occupation of Crete. He was a poor greek boy hosted in the monastery of Fraro by catholic monks who saved him from the plague that his parents had died of. The Monks had offered him his first lessons and sent him to Venice to educate. The ruins of the Fraro monastery can be now seen at a few hundred meters beside Neapolis on the west.

Neapolis became the capital of Lasithi prefecture by the Turkish-Cretan governor of Lasithi Adosidis-Kostis Passas (Pasha).

He was an open-minded person who lived in Neapolis before the period of the Cretan polity (1897) and it is said he had become Christian in secret. He had built some of the most important buildings of the town including the so called Big Palace, which is a Court today, and the so called Little Palace. In this period Neapolis took the permission from the Sultan (Emperor of the Ottoman Empire) of Konstantinopole by a firman (Written Order given by the Sultan) to built a church in one day. The church was built in one day and the name given to it was Panagia Fermanina (Madonna of the firman). There was also built one of the first highschools of Crete. After the end of Turkish occupation and the junction of Crete to mother Greece, in 1913, Neapolis had about 2500 Cretan residents and one Turkish-Cretan family that left Crete in 1922 by the last peace treaty Greece and Turkey had signed.

Today Neapolis is not the prefecture capital any more but still the main courts of the Lasithi prefecture and the archbishop of the Mirabello province reside in it. It has about 4000 habitants and holds a big part of the agricultural economy of Mirabello. It has a Historical and Folklore museum and an Archeological one. It also has a Cathedral, which is one of the biggest in Crete, with many Byzantine style haghiografies. In 1998 the province of Mirabello was split into 2 municipalities by the junction of the villages to the main towns of the province. Neapolis is the name of the joint northwest municipality including the town of Neapolis and the villages Brachasi, Boulismeni, Choumeriako, Bryses, Latsida, Millatos, Sisi, Fourni, Haghios Antonios and many other smaller ones.