Kassandra, Chalkidiki
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Kassandra Κασσάνδρα |
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Kassandra municipality
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 Kassandra
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Location within the region
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| Coordinates: 40°03′N 23°25′E / 40.050°N 23.417°ECoordinates: 40°03′N 23°25′E / 40.050°N 23.417°E | |
| Country | Greece |
| Administrative region | Central Macedonia |
| Regional unit | Chalkidiki |
| Area | |
| • Municipality | 334.3 km2 (129.1 sq mi) |
| • Municipal unit | 206.1 km2 (79.6 sq mi) |
| Population (2011) | |
| • Municipality | 16,672 |
| • Municipality density | 50/km2 (130/sq mi) |
| • Municipal unit | 10,760 |
| • Municipal unit density | 52/km2 (140/sq mi) |
| Time zone | EET (UTC+2) |
| • Summer (DST) | EEST (UTC+3) |
| Postal code | 631 00 |
| Area code(s) | 23710 |
| Vehicle registration | ΧΚ |
Kassandra (Κασσάνδρα) is a peninsula and a municipality in Chalkidiki, Greece. The seat of the municipality is in Kassandreia.
The municipality Kassandra was formed at the 2011 local government reform by the merger of the following 2 former municipalities, that became municipal units (communities in brackets):
The municipality has an area of 334.280 km2, the municipal unit 206.097 km2.
In Late Antiquity, the center of the peninsula was the city of Cassandreia, located at the site of ancient Potidaia. A polis and a bishopric, Cassandreia was destroyed by the Huns in 539 or 540 AD. After this, Emperor Justinian I built a wall at the entrance of the peninsula, but it is not until the 10th century that a sizeable settlement—described as a township (polichnion) and later as a fortress (kastron)—re-appears in the peninsula and that the bishopric is mentioned again, as a suffragan of Thessalonica. The area prospered due to its fertility, and both Thessalonians as well as the monks of the growing monastic community at nearby Mount Athos had estates there.
In the winter of 1307/08, the peninsula and the city were seized and held by the Catalan Company during their move from Thrace to southern Greece. The 14th-century historian Nikephoros Gregoras describes Kassandreia as "abandoned" during his time, and sometime before 1407, Emperor John VII Palaiologos rebuilt the old fortifications of Justinian. As a de facto annex of Thessalonica, the peninsula shared the city's fate and came under a brief Venetian control in 1423, before being captured by the Ottoman Empire in ca. 1430.
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Wikipedia