Chios

Periphery: North Aegean
Prefectures : Chios , Lesbos, Samos

Chios , Google Earth

About Chios Ion the Tragedian has introduced that Poseidon went to that island when it was unoccupied,
and had an intrigue there with a Nymph, and when she was in labour some snow fell, and so Poseidon
called the boy Chios. Pausanias, Book 7

Chios (Χίος) is a Greek island in the Aegean Sea. Chios was colonized by Ionians but has been occupied by the Persians, part of the Delian League and the Byzantine Empire, before passing through the possession of the Latin emperors of Constantinople, the Genoese, the Ottoman Turks.

During the Turkish occupation, there was a massacre of the islanders after a rebellion in 1822, depicted by Eugène Delacroix in his famous artwork at The Louvre. Chios rejoined the rest of independent Greece after the First Balkan War (1912).

"The massacre has no parallel in history since the storming of Syracuse or the sack of Bagdad, Not only were the inhabitants swept away, but the churches, the fine villas, the scattered houses, and the villages were burned to the ground. When the slaughter ceased, it was found that twenty-five thousand men had been slain, and forty-five thousand women and children had become slaves to glut the markets of Constantinople and Egypt, while fifteen thousand had fled to the mainland." The Greek Revolution, John Lord

The Turkish massacre of 1822, which annihilated 5/6 of the 120,000 inhabitants of the island, decimated the Mastichohoria, the mastic growing villages in the south of the island. It triggered enormous public outrage in Western Europe, as can be seen in the art of Delacroix, in the writing of Lord Byron and Victor Hugo.

Chios, Nea Moni 1801

Nea Moni Chios

Claims to Fame

• Nea Moni is a monastery with fine frescoes from Constantine IX's reign and a World Heritage Site. [1]
• The Korai Library, in Chios, is one of the most important in Greece, containing 95,000 volumes.
  
• Chios claims to be the birthplace of Homer, Hippocrates the mathematician, and Oenopides. Oenopion, a legendary king, is said to have brought winemaking to the island.
  
• Chios is home to one of the biggest ship-owning fraternities in Greece, with such shipping families as Livanos, Chandris, Los, Lemos, Pateras, Fafalios, Tsakos, Frangos, and Xylas hailing from the island.
  
• Chios' satellite islands include Oinoussais and Psara, from where Kanaris fired the first shots in the Greek Struggle for Independence (1822 onwards).
  
• Official Chios website (http://www.chios.gr) : operated by Chios Prefecture (including tourist guide)
  
• Chios Museum of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Art, Website
  
• Chios Archaeological Museum, Website
  

Climate

Its climate is mainly Mediterranean. Winters are rarely founded in higher elevations.

Personalities:

Christophoros Columbus: A Byzantine Prince from Chios, Greece, by Ruth G. Durlacher-Wolper

Communities

Persons

Stamatis Krimigis from Vrontados/Chios

Links

• Chios News
• Chios info : Chios by Holiday.gr
• Association of Rooms to Let & Apartments in Chios
• Travel to Chios: Chios guide
• e-xios.gr: portal for Chios, everything you need
• Chios Archaeological Museum