Piraeus

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Piraeus, or Peiraeus (Modern Greek: ???????? Peirai?s or Pire?s, Ancient Greek / Katharevousa: ????????? Pire?fs) is a city in the prefecture of Attica, Greece, located south of Athens. It was the port of the ancient city of Athens (see History of Athens), and was chosen to serve as the modern port when Athens was re-founded in 1834. Piraeus remains a major shipping and industrial centre, and is the terminus for Line 1 (the "green line"), the electric train service now incorporated into the Athens Metro.

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The population of the demos (municipality) of Piraeus (????? ????????) is 175,697 (2001). The nomarchia of Piraeus, which includes the surrounding land and some of the islands of the Saronic Gulf, has a population of 541,504 (2001). It consists of a rocky promontory, containing three natural harbours, a large one on the north-west which is an important commercial harbour for the eastern Mediterranean Sea, and two smaller ones used for naval purposes. The port serves ferry routes to almost every island in the eastern portion of Greece, the island of Crete, the Cyclades, the Dodecanese, and much of the northern and the eastern Aegean. The western part of the port is used for cargo services and covers a huge area. Much of that part of the harbour is in suburban Drapetsona.

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Katharevousa: Katharevousa (Greek ???????????, ) is a form of the Greek language, created during the early 19th century by Adamantios Korais (1748-1833). A graduate of the university of Montpellier in 1788, Korais spent most of his life as an expatriate in Paris. Being a classical scholar, he was repelled by the ...

Athens: Athens (Greek: ?????, Ath?na; IPA ) is the capital of Greece, and of the Attica prefecture of Greece. Modern Athens is a large and cosmopolitan city; Ancient Athens was a powerful city-state and renowned center of learning. It is named after its patron goddess, Athena. Athens is located at 38? North...

History of Athens: The history of Athens is the longest of any city in Europe: Athens has been continuously inhabited for at least 3,000 years. It was the birthplace of democracy and it became the leading city of Ancient Greece in the first millennium BC. Its cultural achievements during the 5th century BC are said to...