Chios

Khios, or Chios as most Greek English speakers know the island, is a Greek island in the Aegean Sea.

The population is about 52,290 (census of 2001), with an area of 910 km². The capital is also called Khíos or Khora; it is a port and the island's chief town. Other settlements include Vrondados, Volissos, Kardamylla and Oinoussais, on a small but wealthy island 5 km away. The island is famous for its scenery and good climate. Its chief export is mastic but it also produces olives, figs, and wine.

History

Khíos 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. Khios rejoined the rest of independent Greece after the First Balkan War (1912).

The Turkish massacre of 1822, which annihilated 1/4 of the 30,000 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, and the writing of Lord Byron.

Claims to Fame

• The Korai Library, in Khios, is one of the most important in Greece, containing 95,000 volumes.

• Khíos 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.

• Khíos is home to one of the biggest ship-owning fraternities in Greece.

• Khios' satellite islands include Inousses and Psara, from where Kanaris fired the first shots in the Greek Struggle for Independence (1822 onwards).