Chameria

Chameria (Çamëria; Τσαμουριά, Tsamouriá; Çamlık) is a term used today mostly by Albanians to refer to parts of the coastal region of Epirus in southern Albania and Greece, traditionally associated with the Albanian ethnic subgroup of the Chams. For a brief period (1909-1912), three kazas (Filat, Aydonat and Margiliç) were combined by the Ottomans into an administrative district called Çamlak sancak. Apart from geographic and ethnographic usages, in contemporary times within Albania the toponym has also acquired irredentist connotations. During the interwar period, the toponym was in common use and the official name of the area above the Acheron river in all Greek state documents. Today it is obsolete in Greek, surviving in some old folk songs. Most of what is called Chameria is divided between parts of the Greek regional units of Thesprotia, Preveza, and Ioannina (some villages at the western side); and the municipality of Konispol at the southernmost extremity of Albania. As the wider Greek toponyms Epirus has existed since antiquity and the narrower Thesprotia also reflects an ancient name, and given the negative sentiments towards Albanian irredentism, the term is not used by the locals on the Greek side of the border. In the Middle Ages this area was known as Vagenetia. Chameria was mostly used as a term for the region of modern Thesprotia, during the Ottoman rule. It is of uncertain etymology. It possibly derives from the ancient Greek name of the Thyamis river, called Cham (Çam) in Albanian, through the unattested Slavic *čamь or *čama rendering the older Slavic *tjama. In European travel reports, the term appears for the first time at the beginning of the 19th century. The term was not used in Ottoman territorial administration before the 20th century. In modern times, the region of Chameria was reduced to the dialectological territory of the Chams, stretching between the mouth of the Acheron river in the south, the area of Butrint in the north, and the Pindus in the east.