Kalamariá

Kalamariá (Καλαμαριά, Port Side) is among the most densely populated suburbs in Thessaloniki, located about southeast of the downtown area, with a population of 92,238. The area was first settled by humans in prehistoric times, and remains from that settlement have been found around the Mikro Emvolo cape. The name Kalamaria was first used in 1083 to denote the area southeast of Thessaloniki, including but not limited to the area of the present-day municipality. During the Byzantine and the Ottoman periods, the area was mostly uninhabited, except for a few fishing lodges. The first settlement was created in the early 1920s to house Asia Minor refugees from the Greek diaspora in Georgia and Asia Minor, who fled or were forcibly sent to Greece as a result of the Greco-Turkish War. As many as 100,000 refugees relocated to Thessaloniki, primarily to the city's suburbs. Refugees from Asia Minor and East Thrace mainly settled in Kalamaria. In 1931, an antisemitic riot, led by National Union of Greece, took place in Camp Campbell, located in nowadays Kalamaria, where a Jewish neighborhood was completely burned, leaving 500 families homeless and one Jewish resident dead. Kalamaria has seen substantial recent growth as part of a population shift from rural and urban areas to suburban areas, particularly to those east of Thessaloniki. Between the 1981 and 2001 censuses, the population of Kalamaria grew by about 36,000 (or 69%). Up until 1943 Kalamaria was part of the Municipality of Thessaloniki. On 1 January 1943 it became an independent administrative unit. Kalamaria had a population of 14,000 residents as recorded by an inventory in 1947, but this has considerably increased, as shown by the Greek census of 2001 where Kalamaria had a total of 87,255 residents. Kalamaria has the second highest population in the Council of the Town Planning Group of Thessaloniki but also of Northern Greece and ninth in all of Greece. Though it was originally separated from the main City of Thessaloniki, the municipality has grown so much in the post-war period that the older physical boundaries are virtually non-existent.