Andravida 4.63

Andravida is a town and a former municipality in Elis, in the northwest of the Peloponnese peninsula of Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Andravida-Kyllini, of which it is a municipal unit. The municipal unit has an area of 40.728 km2. Its population is about 4,300. The town was the capital of the Frankish Principality of Achaea in the late Middle Ages.LocationAndravida is located in the plains of northwestern Elis, at about 7 km from the Ionian Sea coast. It is 3 km south of Lechaina, 6 km north of Gastouni, 30 km northwest of Pyrgos and 55 km southwest of Patras.The Greek National Road 9 (also E55) Patras-Pyrgos-Pylos passes east of the town. The Andravida Air Base is 2.5 km to the east of the city center.HistoryAndravida's early history is obscure: the name is of unknown provenance—several proposals have been made, the most probable of which is that it derives from a Slavic name for "place of the otters"—and the site is not mentioned before the conquest by the Crusaders in 1205, even though it certainly existed before that. According to the Chronicle of the Morea, Andravida, like most of the towns and regions of the northern and western Peloponnese, was captured without a fight in 1205 by the Crusader leader William of Champlitte, and it was there that the local Greek magnates and lords of Elis and of the mountains of Skorta and Mesarea paid him homage and recognized him as their lord.