Chalandri (, Ancient Greek: Φλύα, Phlya, also Halandri,[ Athens Metro Map STASY – Urban Rail Transport Single Member S.A 2022] Khalandri[Joint Steering Committee, J. S. C.. RDA: Resource Description and Access: 2013 Revision. United States: American Library Association, 2013.]) is a town and a suburb in the northern part of the Athens agglomeration, Greece. It is a municipality of the Attica region.
Geography
Chalandri is a suburb in Northern Athens, around from the centre; its location corresponds to one of the 10 ancient
(boroughs) of Athens, known as
Phlya (). The municipality has an area of 10.805 km
2.
Chalandri was a small village until the rapid expansion of Athens during the 1960s and 1970s. Its built-up area is now continuous with those of the neighbouring suburbs
Filothei,
Marousi,
Vrilissia,
Agia Paraskevi,
Cholargos,
Neo Psychiko and
Psychiko. Nevertheless, it has still a high ratio of open green areas per citizen in the Athens agglomeration. Several
embassies are based in Chalandri. It is one of the largest suburbs in terms of population, with more than 70,000 residents. It holds an independent municipality status since 1944. Chalandri is served by the Chalandri, Agia Paraskevi, Doukissis Plakentias as well as Nomismatokopio and Cholargos metro station (the latter two being shared with Papagou-Cholargos).
According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Chalandri has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate, abbreviated "Csa" on climate maps.[ Climate Summary for Chalandri, Greece]
Neighborhoods
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Agia Varvara
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Ano Chalandri
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Doukissis Plakentias (Neo Chalandri)
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Kato Chalandri
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Patima
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Metamorfosi
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Polydroso
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Rizarios
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Toufa (or Fragoklisia)
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Sidera
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Synoikismos
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Center Chalandri
History
Antiquity
In
Ancient history, Chalandri constituted the
Ancient Athens municipality of
Phlya located in the Mesogeia of Attica county, according to the administrative division of
Cleisthenes.
[Pausanias' Attica: The Attic municipality of Phlya] Today it constitutes a prosperous and beautiful area in the northern sector of
Athens. The bulk of the buildings have been built in the last 30 years, although Athenians have resided in Chalandri for at least a century. The administrative boundaries of the modern municipality extend from the gully of the same name to the foothills of
Mount Pentelicus.
Ancient Greece refers to the name
‘Phlya’, which comes from the verb
’φλει’ meaning
‘fertility’, as the land of Chalandri is rich in vegetation.
The municipality of Flya was first inhabited during the Prehistoric or Protohistoric Period and extends in the wider area from Psychiko and Filothei, to Vrilissia and Agia Paraskevi, i.e. the entire area enclosed by Tourkovounia, Penteli and Hymettus. The area shows evidence of settlement during the Bronze Age (2,600–2,000 BC) and the Late Helladic period (1,550–1,100 BC). In classical times it appears as the place of origin of many prominent citizens of the period, such as Euripides and Themistocles, while in Roman and Early Christian times it is plundered and deserted.
The installation of marble workers in the area dates back to the time of the construction of the Parthenon, when marble blocks were brought there and cut with wooden wedges, which were wet with water to make them swell. The abundant water available in the underground rivers of Halandri was the reason for their preference, a reason that until recently made the mega-marble cutting factory called ‘AKROPOLIS’ operate in the area, which also gave the name to the ‘AKROPOLEOS’ stop.
After the founding of the Greek State
After the departure of the Turkish land owners, the pastures of Chalandri were given by distribution or by usufruct to Greek breeders and farmers. Gradually the suburb became a pole of attraction for wealthy people of the urban class of Athens, who bought plots of land with huge gardens and built two-storey villas. There were hundreds of such detached houses – villas with huge gardens until 1980, but today there are only few of them left. In the years of the modern Greek state, Chalandri appears in the administrative jurisdiction of
Athens. In 1910 the first city plan was implemented and in 1925 it was detached from the municipality of
Athens and recognized as an autonomous community of the
East Attica. A year later, in 1926, the building cooperative ‘Agropoleion Company’ is founded, which builds a small area adjacent to
Ymittos and is detached as an autonomous community of
Cholargos. In 1929, the northeastern end of Chalandri was also seceded under the name
Agia Paraskevi, but a few months later it was re-included in its administrative boundaries and retained until 1931, when the latter was recognized as the capital of the eastern prefecture.
Settlement of Asia Minor
After the Asia Minor Catastrophe, many families of
Asia Minor refugees settled in the area and to commemorate the event, a Monument of Asia Minor uprooting has been erected in the park of the streets of
Mikras Asias and
Zalokosta, in the suburb of Chalandri. During these years, Chalandri was a huge land area with scattered single-family houses – villas (mansions), in a verdant environment of pine and plane trees. Its economy was based on livestock and crops, especially fruit trees. With the improvement of the urban plan and because of its good climate, Chalandri became a holiday resort of Athens.
German occupation (1941–1944) and post-war years
In 1941 with the German occupation, Chalandri was in chaos until 1944, a date which marks the new era of Chalandri as an autonomous municipality of
Attica. During the occupation, Chalandri was the headquarters of a Wehrmacht battalion, as it was a route for ELAS guerrillas to communicate from Penteli and Parnitha to Athens. In the northeastern areas of the municipality, at the foot of the mountain, lived farmers and stockbreeders who exploited the state-owned agricultural land until 1949, the year in which part of it was detached for the settlement of Vrilissia. The Municipality of Chalandri managed to keep a residential strip up to the foot of the mountain. The village is connected to the capital through the railway network that runs along Paleologos Avenue, where today there is a green space of Agia Anna. At the end of the 50's the railway network is dismantled and access is possible via Apostolopoulou Avenue, while later main roads are designated as Kifissia and Mesogeion Avenues. The Municipality of Chalandri comes full circle until it becomes part of the Athenian Urban Complex again. The taverns of Chalandri around Dourou Square, with roast lambs, piglets and hunts have gone down in history. The singer
Attik and
Nikos Gounaris were based in Chalandri. Their bust is on Kifissias Avenue.
Dictatorship-Start of immigration
At the beginning of the dictatorship of the Colonels, Chalandri had only 15,000 to 20,000 permanent residents. It was the area of taverns, villas and pine trees. On Penteli Avenue, 1–2 cars per minute were being driven on Penteli Avenue, since Vrilissia and Penteli had not yet been urbanized and were deserted areas. Only in and around Dourou Square it is estimated that there were at least ten famous luxury taverns, where the Athenian bourgeoisie frequented. Some of them were
"Astoria" (having two "Titania" cinemas next to it),
"O Mimis" (roast piglets),
"O kynegos, to kynegi" (hunting goods),
"O Mistos" (a tavern for barrel-feeders), etc. Chalandri had many cinemas, both winter and summer, one of which was a luxury cinema for the time, the Cine
"Eleftheria" (double winter and summer) which was destroyed by fire. In this cinema, every Saturday, up-and-coming rock and pop bands of the time gave performances, which brought out famous musicians, such as Aphrodite's Child (
Demis Roussos, Vangelis Papathanasiou),
Vlasis Bonatsos,
Kostas Tournas, etc. The booming rise of tourist arrivals during the dictatorship resulted in insufficient numbers of beds in the existing Athenian hotels and the mainly American tourists of the time were sent to the 3 small hotels of Chalandri. During this period, many jobs were created in the area, attracting new residents who migrated from other districts of Attica or other parts of Greece altogether (islands, Epirus, Peloponnese, etc.).
From 1974 to the present
After the
Metapolitefsi, the centre of Athens faced significant problems, such as
Air pollution, traffic chaos, constant demonstrations and high real estate costs. Thus, in the years that followed, the area of Chalandri became particularly popular for residents of the basin seeking a better standard of living than in the suffocating center. Due to the large size of the municipality, the slow and gradual integration of its land into the urban plan and its inaccessible economic character, Chalandri continues to be built up to this day. But the damage has already been done. It is estimated that 90% of its trees have been cut down, 95% of its single-family mansions have been demolished, and of course its quaint taverns. In their place came multi-family houses, mega department stores, arcades, corporations, pedestrian walkways, etc. In the modern history of the city of Chalandri, a particularly prosperous municipality has now been formed that manages to combine its commercial strength with meeting the housing needs and the employment of staff and small traders. The entire area around
Kifissias Avenue is covered by highly aesthetic professional roofs of all kinds, large areas of the municipality are covered by clinics, both public and private, while many of the country's embassies are being built at the entrance to the city (National Resistance Avenue).
The commercial pedestrian street of the city is considered to be, along with Kifissia, one of the most popular destinations of the wider region and not only, while in 2007 it is decided to that the Ministry of Economy and Finance is to be relocated to an area of the Municipality. The main problem of Chalandri today, apart from the overbuilding, is that it is forced to accept all the traffic of wheeled vehicles to Melissia, Vrilissia, Penteli, etc. through its core. While during the dictatorship there was maximum one car parked in the Central Square and Dourou Square, plus 1–2 , today it is impossible to find any parking space.
Historical population
|
| 54,320 |
| 66,285 |
| 71,684 |
| 74,192 |
| 77,102 |
The village was historically Arvanitika speaking, with 3,000 Arvanites inhabiting it, (1999). 960259098X, Εταιρεία σπουδών νεοελληνικού πολιτισμού και γενικής παιδείας. 960259098X
Culture
Education
American Community Schools is located in Chalandri.
[" Contact Us." American Community Schools. Retrieved on 20 February 2015. "129 Aghias Paraskevis Ave. & Kazantzaki Street Halandri 15234, Athens Greece"]
Sports
Sport clubs of Chalandri with presence in Greek national divisions are AE Chalandriou (Athlitiki Enosi Chalandriou), GS Chalandriou (Gymnastikos Syllogos Chalandriou) and Nireas Chalandriou. The municipality of Chalandri has also created an extensive channel of sports installations such as tennis courts, football pitches, volleyball and basketball indoor and outdoor courts and also an indoor and outdoor olympic-size swimming pool to enhance the athletic spirit of the inhabitants.
Also, due to the geographical convenience of the area of Chalandri there is an extensive bike route, covering the neighbourhoods from Doukissis Plakentias metro station, to Vrilissia and Gearakas area, reaching until Chalandri downtown city centre, providing safe transportations for families and individuals improving the life level of the area.
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| Earlier presence in Beta Ethniki |
| Presence in Beta Ethniki basketball |
| Earlier presence in A1 Ethniki |
See also
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List of municipalities of Attica
External links
