Chios
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Chios (Greek: Χίος; alternative transliterations Khios and Hios, see also List of traditional Greek place names) is a Greek island in the Aegean Sea 5 miles off the Turkish coasts.
The population is about 52,290 (census of 2001), with an area of 904 km². The capital is also called Chios or Chora; it is a port and the island's chief town. The island is famous for its scenery and good climate. Its chief export is mastic but it also produces olives, figs, and wine.
History
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 (who called the island Scio), and the Ottoman Turks (who called it Sakız).In ancient times, Chios was the biggest exporter of Greek wine and noted for being of relative high quality. Chian amphoras, with a characteristic sphinx emblem and bunches of grape have been found in nearly every country that the ancient Greeks traded with from as far away as Gaul, Upper Egypt and Eastern Russia. Hugh Johnson, Vintage: The Story of Wine pg 41. Simon and Schuster 1989
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 Turkish massacre of 1822, which annihilated 5/6 of the 120,000 Greek 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.
Claims to fame
- Nea Moni is a monastery with fine frescoes from Constantine IX's reign and a World Heritage Site. [link]
- 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, Pachos, Pateras, Fafalios, Frangos, and Xylas hailing from the island.
- Chios' satellite islands include Oinoussais and Psara, from where Kanaris fired the first shots in the Greek War of Independence (1822 onwards).
- Some claim Chios is Christopher Columbus's birthplace. Columbus said he was from Genoa, but he never claimed he was from the city of Genoa itself. Chios was a Genoese possession at the time of Columbus birth, and 'Columbus' is a common surname on Chios . Furthermore Columbus appears to have known Chios very well, since he often made references to it in his journals.
- Chios is also the birthplace of some well known poets of modern times as Giorgos Dilvois, Nikos Gialouris, Dimitris Varos and Matheos Moundes.
- The Korai Library, in Chios, is one of the most important in Greece, containing 95,000 volumes.
- Chios Museum of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Art, [Website]
- Chios Archaeological Museum, [Website]
- The town of Vrodrandos is home to a unique Easter celebration, where competing teams of locals gather at the town's two (rival) churches to fire tens of thousands of homemade rockets at the other church's bell tower while the Easter service is going on inside the churches, in what has become known as rouketopolemos ("the Easter church war").
- Chios is the birthplace of 19th century Ottoman grand vizier İbrahim Ethem Pasha who also had notable descendants (carrying the surname "Eldem" to this day), the most notable among these being the painter Osman Hamdi Bey.
- Namık Kemal, one of the principal pillars of the foundation of modern Turkish literature, served as a sub-prefect (exiled in practical terms) in Chios from 1886 to 1888, and died in the island in 1888.
Chios in popular culture
- The final level of the Monolith computer game No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way takes place on the island of Khios.
Climate
Its climate is mainly Mediterranean. Winters are rarely founded in higher elevations.
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