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Mega Dereio (Greek, Modern: Μέγα Δέρειο, Katharevoussa: ον -on) is a village in the northcentral part of the Evros Prefecture in Greece. It is part of the municipality of Orfeas. The location is near the heart of the prefectural mainland and is centrally located between the Bulgarian and the Turkish borders as well as the Evros River. Protokklisi is linked with the road connecting GR-51/E85 (Alexandroupoli - Soufli - Orestiada - Ormenio) and Mega Dereio with no road connecting Bulgaria or any trails, the trails are fenced. Its 2001 population was 545 for the settlement and 1,120 for the municipal district. The area are hilly and forested while the mountains dominate the west, most of the area are forested, farmlands are within the village. Location It is in the Eastern Rhodope mountains, the Erythropotamos is 20 km northeast by the Bulgarian-Greek border. Mega Dereio is located about 90 km southwest of Orestiada, 65 km west-southwest of Didymoteicho, west-northwest of the Evros River and the Turkish border, 70 km north of Alexandroupoli, northeast of the Greek capital city of Athens and east-southeast of the Bulgarian border. Settlement * Agriani
* Amorio, east-southeast (distance: 6 km)
History The village was founded by the Ottoman Turks in the 14th century, its name was known as (Голям Дервент Goljam Dervent, Turkish: Büyük Dervent). According to Anastas Razbojnikov, its 1830 population was 700, 700 Bulgarians and 50 Turks, 450 in 1878 with 400 Bulgarians and 80 Turks and 1912, 500 with 420 Bulgarians and 500 Turks. According to professor Ljudomir Miletiš, the 1912 population had around 300 Bulgarian exarchists. In August 8, 1913, the village battled with the Turks and handed to the Bulgarians. At the end of the Bulgarian rule, 300 Bulgarians moved northward into Burgas, Mokren (4 families), Zagortsi (4 families), Veselne, Mamarčevo, Sokolenči (2 families) and Drugi Selitsa, the remainder of the Turks were pushed to the western portion of today's Turkey. Historically, the area was once again Greek in centuries, it also translated its name into Greek and became Mega Dereio, today Goljam Dervent, a different settlement is now to the northeast next to the Turkish border in the Jambol province. During the Greco Turkish War (1919-1922), refugees east of the Evros river and from Asia Minor arrived into the village. It became entirely Protoklissi after the annexation. After World War II and the Greek Civil War, many of its buildings were rebuilt. Electricity and automobiles arrived in the 1960s, it was linked with pavement in the late-20th century, television arrived in the 1980s. Internet and computers arrived in the late-1990s. The village's lost three fourths of its population between 1981 and 1991 and two thirds between 1991 and 2001 totaling to nearly half between 1981 and 2001, its inhabitants left for the larger cities and outside Greece.
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