Thessaloniki ( , ),
Thessalonica, or Salonica is the
second-largest
city in Greece
and the
capital of the Greek region of
Macedonia
. It is honourably called the
Συμπρωτεύουσα Symprotevousa (lit. co-capital) of
Greece, as it was once called the
συμβασιλεύουσα
symvasilevousa (royal co-capital) of the
Byzantine Empire. According to the 2001
census, the municipality of Thessaloniki had a population of
363,987. The entire
Thessaloniki
Urban Area had a population of 763,468.
Thessaloniki is Greece's second major economic, industrial,
commercial and political centre, and a major transportation hub for
the rest of southeastern Europe;
its commercial port is also of great
importance for Greece and its southeast European hinterland. The
city hosts an annual
International Trade
Fair, the
Thessaloniki
International Film Festival, and the largest bi-annual meeting
of the
Greek diaspora.
Thessaloniki retains several
Ottoman
and
Jewish structures as well as a
large number of
Byzantine
architectural monuments.
Etymology
All variations for the city's name derive from the original (and
current) appellation in
Greek:
Θεσσαλονίκη, literally
translating to "
Thessaly-
victory" and in origin the name of a
princess,
Thessalonike of
Macedon, who was so named because she was born on the day of
the Macedonian victory at the
Battle of Crocus Field. The
alternative name
Salonica, formerly the common name used
in some
western European languages,
is derived from a variant form Σαλονίκη (
Saloníki) in
popular
Greek speech. The city's name
is also rendered
Thessaloníki or
Saloníki with a
dark l typical of
Macedonian Greek. Names in other
languages prominent in the city's history include سلانيك in
Ottoman Turkish and
Selânik in
modern Turkish,
Solun (
Cyrillic: Солун) in the
Slavic languages
of the region,
Sãrunã in
Aromanian, and
Selanik/Salonika
in
Ladino. It is also known as
'Thess' by Anglophonic diaspora Greeks who returned to Greece and
by the troops of the international forces stationed in the various
ex-Yugoslav territories who visit the city for their breaks from
duty.
History

The Roman odeum in the Ancient Agora
of Thessaloniki.
The city was founded around
315 BC by the
King Cassander of Macedon, on or near the
site of the ancient town of
Therma and
twenty-six other local villages He named it after his wife
Thessalonike, a half-sister of
Alexander the Great
(
Thessalo-nikē means the "
Thessalian victory") (See
Battle of Crocus field). It was an
autonomous part of the Kingdom of Macedon. After the fall of the
kingdom of Macedon in
168 BC, Thessalonica
became a city of the
Roman Republic.
It grew to be an important trade-hub located on the
Via Egnatia and facilitating trade between
Europe and Asia. The city became the capital of one of the four
Roman districts of Macedonia.
When in 379 the Roman Prefecture of Illyricum was divided between
East and West Roman Empires, Thessaloníki became the capital of the
new Prefecture of Illyricum. The economic expansion of the city
continued through the twelfth century as the rule of the
Komnenoi emperors expanded Byzantine control to the
north. Thessaloniki passed out of Byzantine hands in 1204, when
Constantinople was captured by the
Fourth
Crusade. Thessaloníki and its surrounding territory—the
Kingdom of
Thessalonica—became the largest fief of the
Latin Empire. It also was ruled by the
Despotate of Epirus between 1224 and
1246 and was a vassal state of the
Second Bulgarian Empire between 1230
and 1246. The city was recovered by the Byzantine Empire in 1246.
In the 1340s, it was the scene of the anti-aristocratic
Commune of the Zealots.
In 1423, the
Byzantines sold the city to Venice
, which held the city until it was captured by the
Ottoman Sultan Murad II on 29 March 1430. Murad II took
Thessaloniki with a brutal massacre and enslavement of roughly
one-fifth of the native inhabitants. Upon the capture and plunder
of Thessaloniki, many of its inhabitants escaped, including
intellectuals
Theodorus Gaza
“Thessalonicensis” and
Andronicus
Callistus.
During the Ottoman period, the city's Muslim and Jewish population
grew. By 1478 Selânik (سلانیك) – as the city came to be known in
Ottoman Turkish – had a population of 4,320 Muslims and 6,094 Greek
Orthodox, as well as some Catholics, but no Jews. By ca. 1500, the
numbers had grown to 7,986 Greeks, 8,575 Muslims, and 3,770 Jews,
but by 1519, the latter numbered 15,715, 54% of the city's
population. The invitation of the
Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain by
Ferdinand and Isabella, was an Ottoman
demographic strategy aiming to prevent the Greek element from
dominating the city. The city remained the largest Jewish city in
the world for at least two centuries, often called "Mother of
Israel."
Selanik was a sanjak
capital in Rumeli
Eyaleti until 1826, and subsequently the capital of Selanik Vilayeti (between
1826 and 1864 Selanik Eyaleti), which consisted of the sanjaks of
Selanik, Serez
and Drama
between 1826 and 1912.
From 1870, driven by economic growth, the city's population
expanded by 70%, reaching 135,000 in 1917.
During the
First Balkan War, on 26
October 1912 (
Old
Style), the feast day of the city's patron saint,
Saint Demetrius, the Ottoman
garrison surrendered Salonica to the
Greek
Army without any resistance. In 1915, during
World War I, a large
Allied expeditionary force landed at
Thessaloniki as the base for operations against pro-German
Bulgaria, which ended in the establishment of the
Macedonian or Salonika Front.
In 1916, pro-
Venizelist Greek army
officers, with the support of the Allies, launched the
Movement of National Defence,
which resulted in the establishment of a pro-Allied
temporary government that controlled
northern Greece and the Aegean, against the official government of
the King in Athens. This led the city to be dubbed as
symprotévousa ("co-capital"). Most of the old town was
destroyed by
a single
fire on , which was accidentally sparked by French soldiers in
encampments at the city. The fire left some 72,000 homeless, many
of them Turkish, of a population of approximately 271,157 at the
time.
Thessaloniki fell to the forces of
Nazi
Germany on April 22, 1941, and remained under German occupation
until October 30, 1944. The city suffered considerable damage from
Allied bombing. In 1943, 50,000 of the city's Jews were sent to the
gas chambers. Eleven thousand Jews were
deported to forced labor camps, most of whom perished.
One survivor was
Salamo Arouch, a boxing champion, who
survived Auschwitz
by entertaining the Nazis with his boxing
skills.
Thessaloniki was rebuilt after the war with large-scale development
of new infrastructure and industry throughout the 1950s, 1960s and
1970s. On 20 June, 1978, the city was hit by a powerful
earthquake, registering a
moment magnitude of 6.5. The tremor
caused considerable damage to several buildings and ancient
monuments; forty people were crushed to death when an entire
apartment block collapsed in the central Hippodromio
district.
Early
Christian and Byzantine monuments of Thessaloniki were inscribed on
the UNESCO
World Heritage list in 1988, and
Thessaloniki later became European Capital of Culture
1997. In 2004 the city hosted a number of the
football events forming part of the
2004 Summer Olympics.
Geology
Thessaloniki was hit by strong earthquakes in 620, 667, 700, 1677,
1759, 1902, 1904, 1905, 1932, and 1978. The event of 1978 measured
a 6.5 magnitude on the
Richter
scale.
Climate
Thessaloniki lies on the northern fringe of the
Thermaic Gulf, on its western side. The city
has a
Mediterranean to
Mid-European Temperate climate. Annual rainfalls are about
410–450 mm. Snowfalls are sporadic, but happen more or less
every year.
The city lies in a transitional climatic zone, so its climate has
displayed characteristics of continental and Mediterranean climate.
Winters are relatively dry, with common morning frost. Snowfalls
occur almost every year, but usually the snow does not stay for
more than a few days. During the coldest winters, temperatures can
drop to -10C°/14F (Record min. -14C°/7F).
Thessaloniki's summers are hot with rather humid nights. Maximum
temperatures usually rise above 30C°/86F, but rarely go over
40C°/104F (Record max. 44C). Rain is seldom in summer, and mainly
falls during thunderstorms.
Government
Thessaloniki is the second largest city in Greece
. It is an influential city in northern Greece and the capital of Central Macedonia Periphery, Thessaloniki Prefecture
. It is also at the head of the Municipality of Thessaloniki.
Cityscape
Architecture in Thessaloniki is the direct result of the city's
position at the centre of all historical developments in the
Balkans. Aside from its commercial importance, Thessaloniki was
also for many centuries, the military and administrative hub of the
region, and beyond this the transportation link between Europe and
the Levant (Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and
Palestine).
Merchants, traders and refugees from all over Europe settled in the
city. The early Byzantine walls were moved to allow extensions to
the east and west along the coast. The need for commercial and
public buildings in this new era of prosperity led to the
construction of large edifices in the city centre. During this
time, the city saw the building of banks, large hotels, theatres,
warehouses, and factories.
The city layout changed after 1870, when the
seaside fortifications gave way to extensive piers, and many of the
oldest walls of the city were demolished including those
surrounding the White Tower
.
The expansion of
Eleftherias
Square towards the sea completed the new commercial hub of the
city. The western districts are considered as a working class
section, near the factories and industrial activities; the middle
and
upper classes gradually moved from
the city-centre to the eastern suburbs, leaving mainly businesses.
In 1917, a devastating fire swept through the city and burned
uncontrollably during 32 hours. It destroyed the city's historic
center and a large part of its architectural heritage.
A team of architects and urban planners including
Thomas Mawson and Ernest Hebrard, a French
architect, chose the Byzantine era as the basis for their
(re)building designs. The new city plan included axes, diagonal
streets and monumental squares, with a
street
grid that would channel traffic smoothly. The plan of 1917
included provisions for future population expansions and a street
and road network that would be and still is sufficient today. It
contained sites for public buildings, and provided for the
restoration of Byzantine churches and Ottoman mosques. The whole
Upper City, near the fortifications, was declared a
heritage site.
The plan also included a site for the
campus of a future University of Thessaloniki
, which has never been fully realised, although
today's University campus incorporates some of Hebrard's
ideas.
An important element of the plan was to achieve a fine balance
between contemporary urban planning and architectural ideas, and
the city's tradition and history. These plans have not been fully
implemented, and the city still lacks of a full administrative
district. Nevertheless, this aspect of the plan influenced a number
of building and planning decisions throughout the 20th century,
with inevitable adaptations to service the population explosion of
the last 50 years.
Economy
Thessaloníki is a major port city and an industrial and commercial
centre. The city's industries centre around
oil,
steel,
petrochemicals,
textiles, machinery,
flour,
cement,
pharmaceuticals, and
liquor. Being a
free
port, the city functions as the gateway to the Balkan
hinterland. The city is also a major transportation hub for the
whole of south-eastern Europe, carrying, among other things, trade
to and from the neighbouring countries. A considerable percentage
of the city's working force is employed in small- and medium-sized
businesses as well as in the service and the public sectors.
In recent years, the city has begun a process of
deindustrialisation and a move towards a service based economy. A
spate of factory shut downs has occurred in order to take advantage
of cheaper labour markets and more lax regulations. Among the
largest companies to shut down factories are
Goodyear, AVEZ (the first industrial factory in
northern Greece built in 1926), and VIAMIL (ΒΙΑΜΥΛ).
Demographics

The Jewish Cemetery of Thessaloniki in
the late 19th century.

The colourful shopfronts of the
central district of Ladadika which used to be the Jewish
quarter.
Although the population of the Municipality of Thessaloniki has
declined in the last two censuses, the metropolitan area's
population is still growing, as people are moving to the suburbs.
The city
forms the base of the metropolitan area
.
Year |
City population |
Change |
Metro population |
1981 |
406,413 |
- |
- |
1991 |
383,967 |
-22,446/-5.52% |
- |
2001 |
363,987 |
-19,980/-5.20% |
1,057,825
|
The Jews of Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki's Jewish community was largely of
Sephardic background, but also included the
historically significant and ancient Greek-speaking
Romaniote community. During the
Ottoman era, Thessaloniki's Sephardic refugee
community comprised more than half the city's population and the
Jews were dominant in commerce until the Greek population increased
after 1912. Within the interwar the Greek state granted the Jews
the same
civil rights as the other
Greek citizens. Many Jewish inhabitants of Thessaloniki spoke
Ladino, the
Romance language of the
Sephardic Jews .
A great blow to the Jewish community of Thessaloniki came with the
great fire of 1917,
which left 50,000 Jews homeless. Some Jews emigrated to other parts
of Europe. The arrival of 100,000 Greek refugees settling in and
around Thessaloniki after the Asia Minor catastrophe of 1923,also
reduced the proportions of the community. During the interwar
period they represented about 20% of the city's population.
In March 1926, Greece had re-emphasised that all citizens of Greece
enjoyed equal rights, and a considerable proportion of the city's
Jews stuck by their earlier convictions thought they should remain.
By 1944 the great majority of the community firmly identified
itself as both Greek and Jewish. According to
Misha Glenny, these Greek Jews had largely not
encountered "anti-Semitism as in its North European form. By the
mid 1940s the prospect of German deportation to death camps was
repeatedly met with disbelief by an increasingly well integrated
Greek Jewish population. Mordechai Frizis nevertheless became one
of the leading Greek officers of World War II.
The Nazis exterminated approximately 96% of Thessaloniki's Jews of
all ages during the
Holocaust. Today,
there is a community of around 1000 in the city , and there are
communities of descendants of Thessaloniki Jews – both
Sephardic and Romaniote – in other areas, mainly the United
States and Israel.
Jewish Population of Thessaloniki
Year |
Total Population |
Jewish Population |
Jewish Percentage |
Source |
1842 |
70,000 |
36,000 |
51% |
Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer |
1870 |
90,000 |
50,000 |
56% |
Greek schoolbook (G.K. Moraitopoulos, 1882) |
1882/84 |
85,000 |
48,000 |
56% |
Ottoman government census |
1902 |
126,000 |
62,000 |
49% |
Ottoman government census |
1913 |
157,889 |
61,439 |
39% |
Greek government census |
1917 |
271,157 |
52,000 |
19% |
J. Nehama, Histoire des Israélites de Salonique, t. VI-VII,
Thessalonique 1978, p.765 (via
Greek Wikipedia): the population was inflated because of
refugees from the First World War |
1943 |
|
50,000 |
|
|
2000 |
363,987 |
1,000 |
0.27% |
(post-Holocaust) |
Historical ethnic statistics
The tables below show the ethnic statistics of Thessaloniki during
the end of 19th and the beginning of 20th century.
Year |
Total Population |
Jewish Population |
Turkish Population |
Greek Population |
Bulgarian Population |
Roma Population |
Other groups |
1890 |
118,000 |
55,000 |
26,000 |
16,000 |
10,000 |
2,500 |
8,500 |
around 1913 |
157,889 |
61,439 |
45,889 |
39,956 |
6,263 |
2,721 |
1,621 |
Culture

Thessaloniki Science Center &
Technology Museum.
The Opera of Thessaloniki was founded when the city was the
European Capital of
Culture in 1997 It is an independent section of the National
Theatre of Northern Greece.
Thessaloniki is home of a number of festivals and events, including
the Thessaloniki International Trade Fair which has been hosted at
the Thessaloniki International Exhibition Centre. Over 300,000
visitors attended in 2007. The
Thessaloniki
International Film Festival has been established as one of the
most important film festivals in
Southeastern Europe, with a number of
notable film makers such as
Francis
Ford Coppola,
Faye Dunaway,
Catherine Deneuve,
Irene Papas and
Fatih
Akın taking part to it. The
Documentary Festival,
founded in 1999, has focused on documentaries that explore global
social and cultural developments, with many of the films presented
being candidates for
FIPRESCI and Audience
Awards. The
Dimitria festival, founded in
1966 and named after the city's
patron
saint of
St. Demetrius, has
focused on a wide range of events including music, theatre, dance,
local happenings, and exhibitions. The "
DMC DJ Championship" has been
hosted at the International Trade Fair of Thessaloniki and has
become a worldwide event for aspiring DJs and turntablists. The
"International Festival of Photography" has taken place every
February to mid-April. Exhibitions for the event are sited in
museums, heritage landmarks, galleries, bookshops and cafés.
Sports
The main
football stadiums in the city are the state-owned Kaftanzoglio Stadium
, Toumba
Stadium
and Kleanthis Vikelides Stadium
home fields of Iraklis, PAOK and Aris
respectively, all of whom are founding members of the Greek league. Thessaloniki's major
indoor arenas are the state-owned Alexandreio Melathron
, PAOK Sports Arena
and the YMCA indoor
hall. Other sporting clubs in the city include
Apollon based in the eastern
suburb of Kalamaria
, Agrotikos Asteras
based in Evosmos
and YMCA. Thessaloniki has a rich sporting
history with its teams winning the first ever panhellenic
football,
basketball, and
water
polo tournaments.
The city played a major role in the development of basketball in
Greece. The local YMCA was the first to introduce the sport to the
country while
Iraklis won the first Greek
championship. From 1979 to 1993
Aris and
PAOK won between them 10
championships, 7 cups and a European title. In volleyball,
Iraklis has emerged since 2000 as
one of the most successful teams in Greece and Europe alike with
several domestic and international successes. In October 2007, the
first Southeastern European Games were organized in
Thessaloniki.
Notable Thessalonians
Thessaloniki, throughout its history has been home for a number of
politicians,
artists,
craftsmen,
sportsmen,
clergy
and
singers among others.It is the
birthplace of some Saints, as well as politicians such as
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
Transportation
Public transport in Thessaloniki is by buses. The
bus company operating in the city is called Organismos
Astikon Sygkoinonion Thessalonikis (
OASTH), or
Thessaloniki Urban Transportation Organization.
Thessaloniki Metro
The construction of the Thessaloniki Metropolitan Railway began in
2006 and is scheduled for completion in late 2012. The line is set
to extend over and include 13 stations, and it is expected that the
subway will eventually serve 250,000 passengers daily. Some
stations of the
Thessaloniki
Metro will house a number of archaeological finds.
Discussions are underway on future
expansion, in order to connect the underground with the major
transport hubs for the city, the Makedonia Central Bus Station, the
Central Railway Station and Makedonia
International Airport
. Expansions to Kalamaria
, the easternmost district of Thessaloniki, and to
Stavroupoli
in the west, are part of the initial construction
phase. Expansion plans include the districts of
Eleftherio-Kordelio
and the northern districts, such as Toumba.
Commuter rail
Commuter
rail services have recently been established between Thessaloniki
and Larissa
, covering the journey in an 1 hour 33
min.
Motorways
Thessaloniki was without a motorway link
until the 1970s when it was accessed by GR-1/E75 from Athens, GR-4, GR-2, (Via Egnatia) /E90 and GR-12/E85
from Serres and Sofia
. In
the early 1970s the motorway had reached Thessaloniki and was the
last section of the GR-1 to be completed. The city's 6-lane bypass
was completed in 1988. It runs from the western, industrial side of
the city, to its southeast. Upgraded in 2007, it took in a number
of new junctions and improved motorway features. In 2008, the
motorway was expanded toward the
Egnatia Motorway, northwest of
Thessaloniki.
Railways
The city
is a railway hub for the Balkans, with direct connections to
Sofia
, Skopje
, Belgrade
, Moscow
, Vienna
, Budapest
, Bucharest
and Istanbul
, alongside Athens
and other
destinations in Greece
.
Airport
Air traffic to and from the city is served by
Makedonia
International Airport
, for both international and domestic
flights. The short length of the airport's two runways means
that it does not currently support intercontinental flights,
although there are plans for a major expansion extending one of its
runways into the Thermaic Gulf, despite considerable opposition
from local environmentalist groups.
International relations
Twin towns — Sister cities
Thessaloniki is
twinned with:
- Alexandria
, Egypt
, since July
12, 1993
- Bologna
, Italy
, since
October 20, 1984
- Bratislava
, Slovakia
, since April 23, 1986
- Cologne, Germany, since May 3, 1988
- Constanţa
, Romania
, since July 5, 1988
- Hartford
, United
States
since March 5, 1962
- Kolkata
, India
since
January 1, 2005
- Korçë
, Albania
since October 14, 2005
- Leipzig
, Germany
, since October 17, 1984
- Limassol
, Cyprus
, since June
30, 1984
- Melbourne
, Australia since March 19,
1984
- Nice
, France
, since
March 20, 1992
- Plovdiv
, Bulgaria
, since February 27, 1984
- San Francisco
, United States since August 6, 1990
- Tel
Aviv
, Israel
, since
November 24, 1994
- Tianjin
, China since March 4, 2002
- Dongguan
, China since October 24, 2008
Collaborations
- Boston
, United States
since April 21, 1996
- Brooklyn Center
, United States
since July 5, 1993
- Budapest
, Hungary since April 5, 1993
- Dnipropetrovsk
, Ukraine
since April 18, 2003
- Gyumri
, Armenia
since November 23, 2000
- Marseille
, France
, since
June 4, 1991
- Philadelphia
, United
States
since April 1, 2004
- Saint Petersburg
, Russia
, since
2003
- Shenyang
, China
since
March 23, 2000
- Toronto
, Canada
since
September 5, 1986
- Venice
, Italy,
since July 17, 2003
- İzmir
,Turkey,
since February 6, 2009
See also
References
- Not to be confused with the neighbouring Republic of
Macedonia.
- Strabo VIII Fr. 21,24
- Paul's early period By Rainer Riesner, Doug Scott Page 338 ISBN
080284166X
- The pocket guide to Saint Paul By Peter E. Lewis, Ron Bolden –
Page 118 ISBN 1862545626
- cf. the account of John Anagnostes.
- The New Cambridge Medieval History p. 779 – Rosamond
McKitterick, Christopher Allmand
- Salamo Arouch, 86, survived Auschwitz by
boxing, Haaretz
- PDF file
- PFI (ΒΦΛ)
- "Misha Glenny, The Balkans, page 512"
- 1οι Αγώνες των χωρών της Νοτιανατολικής Ευρώπης -
SEE games - Thessaloniki 2007
External sources
- Apostolos Papagiannopoulos,Monuments of Thessaloniki,
Rekos Ltd, date unknown.
- Apostolos P. Vacalopoulos, A History of Thessaloniki,
Institute for Balkan Studies,1972.
- John R. Melville-Jones, 'Venice and Thessalonica 1423-1430 Vol
I, The Venetian Accounts, Vol. II, the Greek Accounts, Unipress,
Padova, 2002 and 2006 (the latter work contains English
translations of accounts of the events of this period by St Symeon
of Thessaloniki and John
Anagnostes).
- Thessaloniki: Tourist guide and street map, A.
Kessopoulos, Malliarēs-Paideia, 1988.
- Mark Mazower, Salonica, City of
Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews, 1430-1950, 2004, ISBN
0-375-41298-0.
- Thessaloniki City Guide, Axon Publications, 2002.
- James C. Skedros, Saint Demetrios of Thessaloniki: Civic
Patron and Divine Protector, 4th-7Th Centuries (Harvard
Theological Studies), Trinity Press International (1999).
- Vilma Hastaoglou-Martinidis (ed.), Restructuring the City:
International Urban Design Competitions for Thessaloniki,
Andreas Papadakis, 1999.
- Matthieu Ghilardi, Dynamiques spatiales et reconstitutions
paléogéographiques de la plaine de Thessalonique (Grèce) à
l'Holocène récent, 2007. Thèse de Doctorat de l'Université de Paris
12 Val-de-Marne, 475 p.
External links
Government
Cultural