Andros is one of the most famous and historic Greek islands. It was one of the islands with the most growth during the early years of Greece!
So let’s dive into some trivia and facts!
- Andros is the northernmost island of the Greek Cyclades archipelago
- About 10 km (6 mi) southeast of Euboea
- And about 3 km (2 mi) north of Tinos
- It is nearly 40 km (25 mi) long
- Its greatest breadth is 16 km (10 mi)
- It is for the most part mountainous
- With many fruitful and well-watered valleys
- The municipality, which includes the island Andros and several small, uninhabited islands, has an area of 380 km2 (146.719 sq mi)
- The largest towns are Andros (town), Gavrio, Batsi, and Ormos Korthiou
- The island is famous for its Sariza spring at Apoikia
- There the water flows from a sculpted stone lion’s head
- Palaeopolis, the ancient capital, was built into a steep hillside
- And the breakwater of its harbor can still be seen underwater
- Andros also offers great hiking options
- Andros is a separate regional unit of the South Aegean region
- And the only municipality of the regional unit
- As part of the 2011 Kallikratis government reform, the regional unit Andros was created out of part of the former Cyclades Prefecture
- At the same reform, the current municipality Andros was created out of the 3 former municipalities
- The province of Andros was one of the provinces of the Cyclades Prefecture
- Its territory corresponded with that of the current regional unit Andros
- It was abolished in 2006
- Andros, the capital, on the east coast, had about 2,000 inhabitants in 1900
- The island had about 18,000 inhabitants in (1900)
- The 1991 census read 8,781
- According to the latest Greek census of 2011, the town of Andros still numbered 1,665 inhabitants
- And the island’s total was 9,221
- The island is composed of the municipal units of Andros (town) (pop. 3,901), Korthio (pop. 1,948), and Ydrousa (pop. 3,372)
- The north of Andros has a small Arvanite community
- The name of the island in Arvanitika is Ε̰νdρα, Ëndra
- During the Final Neolithic (over 5,000 years ago), Andros had a fortified village on its west coast
- Which archaeologists have named Strofilias, after the plateau on which it was built
- Strofilias was related to the “Attica-Kephala” culture, and predates the Cycladic culture of the Bronze Age
- It was an important maritime center and one of the earliest examples of fortification in Greece
- It is notable for rock carvings on its walls, which include animals such as jackals, goats, deer, fish and dolphins, as well as a depiction of a flotilla of ships
- The island in ancient times contained an Ionian population, perhaps with an admixture of Thracian ancestry
- Though it has been proposed that Andros was originally dependent on Eretria
- By the 7th century BC it had become sufficiently prosperous to send out several colonies, to Chalcidice (Acanthus, Stageira, Argilus, Sane)
- The ruins of Palaeopolis, the ancient capital, are on the west coast
- The town possessed a famous temple, dedicated to Dionysus
- In 480 BC, it supplied ships to Xerxes and was subsequently harried by the Greek fleet
- Though enrolled in the Delian League, it remained disaffected towards Athens
- And in 477 had to be coerced by the establishment of a cleruchy on the island
- Nevertheless, in 411 Andros proclaimed its freedom
- And in 408 withstood an Athenian attack
- As a member of the second Delian League, it was again controlled by a garrison and an archon
- In the Hellenistic period, Andros was contended for as a frontier-post by the two naval powers of the Aegean Sea, Macedon and Ptolemaic Egypt
- In 333, it received a Macedonian garrison from Antipater
- In 308 it was freed by Ptolemy I of Egypt
- In the Chremonidean War (266–263) it passed again to Macedon after a battle fought off its shores
- The Ptolemaic empire was at its height, with a considerable fleet stationed at Andros
- In 200, it was captured by a combined Roman, Pergamene and Rhodian fleet
- And remained a possession of the Kingdom of Pergamon until the dissolution of that kingdom in 133 BC
- Then it was granted to Rome
- On May 10, 1821, Theophilos Kairis, one of the leading Greek intellectuals, declared the island’s participation in the Greek War of Independence by raising the Greek flag at the Church of St George
- At this time, a famous heartfelt speech, or “ritoras” (ρήτορας), inspired shipowners and merchants to contribute funds to build a Greek Navy to combat the Ottomans
- At the end of the war, the island became part of the independent Kingdom of Greece
- Following Independence, Andros became a major centre of Greek shipping
- In this it was helped by the arrival of refugees from Psara
- And the decline of other traditional shipping centres such as Galaxeidi and Hydra Island
- Andrian merchants were particularly active in the grain trade from central and eastern Europe conducted from the Danube estuary
- Initially locally constructed, Andrian ships were later built at Syros
- Especially as shipping began the transit to steam
- By 1914, Andrian-registered shipping was second in Greece in terms of capacity
- After World War I, the local registered ships rose from 25 (1921) to 80 before World War II
- The losses suffered during the latter, as well as the internationalization of shipping and emigration of the ship-owning families to Piraeus and London, signalled the end of Andrian shipping
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