Kalamaria 6.55

Kalamariá is a municipality of the Thessaloniki Urban Area, located about 7km southeast of downtown Thessaloniki. It is the second largest municipality of the Thessaloniki Urban Area as well as one of the largest in Greece, with a population increase of 13% since the 1991 census.HistoryThe area was first settled by humans in prehistoric times, and remains from that settlement have been found around the Karabournaki 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 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 of Pontic descent mainly relocated in Kalamaria, and the municipality's population is predominantly of Pontic descent to this day.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.