Ptolemaida

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Ptolemaida parish
Δημοτική Ενότητα Πτολεμαΐδας
(Πτολεμαΐδα)
Ptolemaida (Greece)
Bluedot.svg
Basic data
State : GreeceGreece Greece
Region : Western Macedonia

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Regional District : Kozani
Municipality : Eordea
Geographic coordinates : 40 ° 31 '  N , 21 ° 41'  E Coordinates: 40 ° 31 '  N , 21 ° 41'  E
Height above d. M .: 595 - 600 - 780 m
Perdickas - Ptolemaida - Pteleonas
Area : 217.901 km²
Residents : 37,289 (2011)
Population density : 171.1 inhabitants / km²
Code No .: 140301
Structure: f121 city district
11 local communities
Located in the municipality of Eordea and Kozani regional unit
File: DE Ptolemaidas.svg
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Ptolemaida ( Greek Πτολεμαΐδα ( f. Sg. ), Older also Ptolemais Πτολεμαΐς) is a city and the administrative seat of the municipality of Eordea in the Greek region of Western Macedonia . Until 2010 it was an independent municipality in the prefecture of Kozani , as such until 1997 the capital of the province of Eordea.

Geography, geology and climate

Aerial view of the city of Ptolemaida 2006

geography

Mount Askio (Siniatsiko)

Ptolemaida is located in the middle of the Eordaia plateau in the northern part of Kozani Prefecture at an altitude of 600 m. There are no elevations within several kilometers of the city. Nevertheless, Ptolemaida is framed by mountains in the south, west and east. Southwest of the city is the mountain Siniatsiko (Askio; 2111 m), which with its foothills Ptolemaida also partly in the south with a distance of a few kilometers. To the east-northeast lie the foothills of the Vermio Mountains with the peaks Mavri Petra (2027 m), Palati (1895 m) and Vermio (2050 m). To the east of Ptolemaida rises the peak Kokkini Magoula (1485 m), which is also part of the Vermio Mountains. To the northwest beyond Lake Cheimatitidia are the mountain ranges of the Vitsi massif (or Verno ; 2128 m), west of the city the mountain Askio merges into the mountain Korisos (1386 m). The Klissoura Pass leads to Kastoria between Korisos, Askio on the one hand and Vitsi on the other .

The distance to the prefecture capital Kozani in the south is 28 km, to the north-west Florina it is 54 km and to the east-northeast city Edessa it is also 54 km. The distance to the east of Thessaloniki is approx. 150 km.

climate

The climate in Ptolemaida is continental with hot summers and cold winters. Snowfall is the norm in Ptolemaida in winter. The concentration of power plants around Ptolemaida, its location on the Eordaia plain and the lack of exhaust air purification from the power plants compared to similar regions in Europe result in high levels of air pollution in the city, which can sometimes be seen with the naked eye.

history

Prehistoric jewelry. Found in Ptolemaida
Map of the Macedonian Kingdom at the time of Philip II.

Pre-antiquity and antiquity

According to archaeological finds, the region of Ptolemaida (Eordaia) was settled as early as the 6th millennium BC. Around 2200 BC, Aeolians and Arcadians are said to have lived as so-called Protohellenes in what is now West Macedonia - but there are no exact sources that prove a settlement by these peoples. The extent to which Pelasgians and / or Thracians settled the region has also not been proven beyond doubt.

In ancient times, the name Eordaia was regularly used for the populated region around Ptolemaida. At the site of today's Ptolemaida itself there was no significant ancient settlement. Already in the 6th century BC Eordaia belonged to the sphere of influence of the Macedonian kingdom ARCHAISM IN THE MIDDLE OF V CENTURY BC ( Memento of February 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive ). At the latest under Philip II , Eordaia and with it Ptolemaida formally fell to the Kingdom of Macedonia. Two generals of Alexander the Great came from Eordaia: Ptolemy I Soter and Aristonous. With the collapse of the empire of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, Eordaia remained with Macedonia under King Philip III. Arrhidaios . With the final conquest of Macedonia by the Roman Empire in 168 BC ( Battle of Pydna ), Eordaia fell to Rome.

During the Roman period (168 BC - 395 AD), the northern part of Eordaia in particular prospered with the settlements of Petres and Kella (Cellae) through the Via Egnatia , which passed Eordaia in the north. There was no significant settlement at the site of today's Ptolemaida.

Byzantine Period (395-1389)

After the fall of the Roman Empire around 395 AD, the Eordea region fell to the Byzantine Empire . Remains of early Christian basilicas can be found from the 4th century AD (in the villages of Akrini and Voskochori, but not in the area of ​​today's city of Ptolemaida). Under Emperor Justinian I (527-565), the area of ​​Eordea was assigned to the Macedonia theme and the area was equipped with fortresses in accordance with the thematic constitution. From 581, according to the reports of John of Ephesus , the Slavs first invaded the Balkans and thus also into the Eordea region. Parts of the Slavs settled firmly. In the period between 650 and 717, the Eordea region was incorporated into the Greater Bulgarian Empire and no longer part of the Byzantine Empire. It remained under Bulgarian control until the Byzantine Emperor Basil II conquered the Eordea region for the Byzantine Empire from 1003 to 1018. In 1204 Constantinople fell as part of the 4th Crusade. The subsequent fragmentation of the Byzantine Empire brought the Eordea region under the control of the Kingdom of Thessaloniki under Boniface I (Montferrat) . His rule only lasted until 1218, when the despotate of Epirus under Theodoros I Angelos gained control of the Eordea region. The Nicaea Empire under John III. conquered the Eordea again for the Byzantine Empire between 1246 (fall of Thessaloniki) and 1259 (battle of Pelagonia). The Serbian Emperor Stefan Uroš IV. Dušan was able to incorporate large parts of Macedonia and thus also the Eordea region into the Greater Serbian Empire from 1343 onwards . When the Ottomans invaded the Balkans in the second half of the 14th century, the Eordea region fell under the control of the Ottoman Empire , whose control had been strengthened since the Battle of the Amselfeld in 1389.

Ottoman period (1389-1912)

During the time under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, the Eordea region in the Kayılar region was called (Greek Καϊλάρ ). The settlement of Kayılar in the area of ​​today's city of Ptolemaida gave the region its name. From 1385, Muslims began to settle in the Eordea or Kayılar region, mostly soldiers who had left the service of the Ottoman army. This settlement shifted the shares of the ethnic groups in favor of the Turkish settlers, who formed the majority until the end of Ottoman rule in 1912. In 1661 the Turkish traveler Evligia Efendi Tselembi described the village of Kayılar as a collection of 200 houses with a bath, a mosque and several shops. In addition to the predominantly Ottoman population in villages like Kayılar, there were also villages with a Greek majority such as Asvestopetra in the Kayılar region. The Slavs, who immigrated as early as the 6th century, as well as the Bulgarians settled during the period of Bulgarian rule, formed further population groups in the region. The Greek War of Independence (1821–1829) did not affect the region. Subsequent disputes between the Kingdom of Greece and the Ottoman Empire, such as the Turkish-Greek War between 1896 and 1897 or the cession of Thessaly to the Kingdom of Greece in 1881 initially had no influence on the region around Ptolemaida. According to local tradition, the first Greek family settled in Kayılar village in 1870.

Modern Greek period (from 1912)

In the First Balkan War in 1912, the village of Kayılar was conquered by Greek troops on October 15, 1912 (Julian calendar) / beginning of November (Gregorian calendar) and in 1918 it was recognized as a rural community (kinotia) Kailaria (Καϊλάρια). Initially, the Turkish majority remained: until 1923 members of the Turkish population group were mayors of Kayılar or Ptolemaida. After the Greco-Turkish War and the Greek defeat (catastrophe in Asia Minor) in 1922, the Greek and Turkish governments ( Treaty of Lausanne ) agree on a major “ population exchange ”. 500,000 Turks with settlement areas in Macedonia and Thrace had to leave them and were forcibly relocated to Turkey. In return, 1.5 million Greeks had to leave their settlement areas in Asia Minor and were forcibly relocated to Greece. Kayılar (Ptolemaida) is particularly affected by this "population exchange": it loses its Turkish majority, at the same time gains a Greek majority through the settlement of Greek refugees from Asia Minor and thus receives a largely new population. In 1922 10 people left the area of ​​Kailar, in 1923 there were 30,770 people who were brought to Turkey via Thessaloniki. During the same period, 95 people from the Slavic-Macedonian population group left Kailaria or Ptolemaida. In addition to the refugee problem, the population also had to struggle with the malaria that was still present at the time: between 1921 and 1925, 35-95% of the refugees in the Kailaria (Ptolemaida) region had malaria.

In 1927 Kailaria was renamed Ptolemaida by decree of the Greek President in reference to the Macedonian general Ptolemaios I. Soter . The province of Kailaria (Eparchia Kailarion), unchanged after this renaming, was renamed the province of Eordea (Eparchia Eordeas or Eordea) at the end of 1927 by a new decree of the Greek President.

As part of the Balkan campaign of the Second World War of the German Wehrmacht in 1941, Ptolemaida was occupied by German troops on April 13, 1941 after the Battle of Vevi and the associated conquest of the Klidi Pass on the northern edge of the plain of Eordaia. On September 8, 1942, the village of Ptolemaida received city ​​rights by converting the administrative unit koinotita (κοινότητα) into a dimos (δήμος) with a population of 8,000 at that time. In October 1944, German troops withdrew from Greece.

From mid-1946 to mid-1949, Ptolemaida was also the scene of the Greek civil war .

In the village of Kardia, which was abandoned by its residents in 2001, the local residents were required on July 8, 1959 to publicly swear that the Slavic-Macedonian language would not be used.

Population, administration and politics

Administrative division

The municipality of Ptolemaida was expanded considerably in 1997 to include several neighboring rural communities. With the administrative reform in 2010 , Ptolemaida was absorbed into the newly created municipality of Eordea , in which it has since formed a municipality.

District
local community 		Greek name code Area (km²) 2001 residents Residents 2011 Villages and settlements
Ptolemaida Δημοτική Κοινότητα Πτολεμαΐδος 14030101 57.508 28,942 32,142 Ptolemaida, Bodosakio General Hospital, Hotel Pandelidis, Hotel Ptolemaios
Asvestopetra Τοπική Κοινότητα Ασβεστοπέτρας 14030102 24.053 00740 00739 Asvestopetra
Galatia Τοπική Κοινότητα Γαλατείας 14030103 17.131 00530 00393 Galatia
Drosero Τοπική Κοινότητα Δροσερού 14030104 10,555 00327 00342 Drosero
Cardia Τοπική Κοινότητα Καρδίας 14030105 09.297 00000 00005 Cardia
Komanos Τοπική Κοινότητα Κομάνου 14030106 09.447 00523 00107 Komanos
Mavropigi Τοπική Κοινότητα Μαυροπηγής 14030107 21,043 00649 00456 Mavropigi
Olympias Τοπική Κοινότητα Ολυμπιάδος 14030108 12,530 00693 00614 Olympias
Pendavrysos Τοπική Κοινότητα Πενταβρύσου 14030109 05.602 00305 00224 Pendavrysos
Perdiccas Τοπική Κοινότητα Περδίκκα 14030110 30.961 01,854 01,582 Perdiccas
Proastio Τοπική Κοινότητα Προαστίου 14030111 10,552 00863 00649 Proastio, Palia Ambelia
Pteleon Τοπική Κοινότητα Πτελεώνος 14030112 09.222 00113 00036 Pteleon
total 140301 217,901 35,539 37,289
Population development of the city of Ptolemaida
1913 1920 1928 1940 1951 1961 1971 1981 1991 2001 2011
05,554 07.103 06,442 07,719 08,816 12,747 16,588 22,109 25.195 28,942 32,142

Economy, infrastructure and transport

economy

Ptolemaida is of enormous importance for the energy industry in Greece. The city is also known as the energy center of Greece. The reason for this important role is the lignite deposits in the plain of Eordaia and continued to the north in the eastern part of the plain of Florina. The lignite is used to fire power plants that are used to generate electricity. The largest are the power plants Agios Dimitrios and Kardia , which according to the WWF list have the highest emissions of carbon dioxide per generated kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity in Europe. 70% of Greek electricity is produced in Western Macedonia, including Ptolemaida. In addition, the waste heat from the lignite power plants is used to heat Ptolemaida.

Lignite is mined in several places: southeast of Ptolemaida on an area of ​​about 15 by 8 kilometers and on a smaller area north of Ptolemaida (Achlada, Perdikkas). In addition to the mining areas in the Eordaia plain around Ptolemaida, there are also brown coal deposits in Greece in Megalopoli in the Peloponnese , in the area of Drama , in the area of Elassona and in the plain of Florina ( Meliti , Vevi ). The first occurrences were discovered around Ptolemaida in the 1950s. Subsequently, power plants for utilizing the lignite to generate electricity were put into operation. In the entire lignite mining area of ​​Florina and Ptolemaida, five lignite power plants with a total output of 4438 megawatts have been operated since 2003 . In 2005 more than 52 million tons of lignite were mined. A total of 5000 people are employed in this branch of industry.

The suburb of Mavropigi is on the edge of the mining zone and has already been cleared, the dead are being reburied, the church has already been dredged away. At the same time, the Ptolemaida V power plant is being built with the support of the German KFW bank . It is designed for 660 megawatts and should be ready in 2022, although lignite production is also declining in Greece. In 2009, lignite still supplied around 50 percent of Greek electricity, but nine years later the share is only 30 percent.

One of the world's largest solar power plants is to be built on abandoned open-cast mining sites . A subsidiary of DEI is planning a photovoltaic system on 530 hectares with an output of 200 megawatts .

traffic

Already in the late 19th century Ptolemaida (then name Kaīlar) had developed roads to Amynteo (then name Sorovic) and Kozani. In the 1960s, with the completion of National Road 3 ( European Route 65 ), Ptolemaida was connected to the national Greek road network. In the late 1990s, the road infrastructure began to be expanded as the volume of traffic increased. Here, the national road 3 was partially re-routed and built in a northerly direction to Amyndeo and Florina . In a southerly direction, the national road 3 to Kozani was also partially re-routed and built. Ptolemaida has been indirectly connected to the Greek motorway network via national road 3 since 2004 (junction Kozani-Nord on motorway 2 )

Ptolemaida is at the junction of the Thessaloniki – Veria – Edessa – Amyndeo – Florina – Niki – Bitola railway, which leads to Kozani (terminus). Ptolemaida train station is to the east of the city. It was built in 1953. After being shut down for repairs from 2002 to January 2007, the line is again open to traffic.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Results of the 2011 census at the National Statistical Service of Greece (ΕΛ.ΣΤΑΤ) ( Memento from June 27, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (Excel document, 2.6 MB)
  2. ↑ a b Johannes Kromayer. Ancient battlefields: building blocks for an ancient war story. Weidmann, 1907. p. 11.
  3. ↑ Nicholas Konsolas, Ilias Plaskovitis, Athanassios Papadaskalopoulos. Regional Development in Greece. Springer, 2002. p. 60. ISBN 3540423958
  4. ↑ Newspaper article in the Embros newspaper of October 20, 1912 (Julian calendar), page 3.
  5. ↑ Διοικητικές μεταβολές των ΟΤΑ - Κ. Καϊλαρίων Ν. Κοζάνης community history on eetaa.gr  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Greek)@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.eetaa.gr  
  6. ↑ Elizabeth Kontogiorgi. Population Exchange in Greek Macedonia: The Rural Settlement of Refugees 1922-1930. Oxford University Press, 2006. p. 199. ISBN 0-19-927896-2
  7. ↑ Elizabeth Kontogiorgi. Population Exchange in Greek Macedonia: The Rural Settlement of Refugees 1922-1930. Oxford University Press, 2006. p. 203. ISBN 0-19-927896-2
  8. ↑ Elizabeth Kontogiorgi. Population Exchange in Greek Macedonia: The Rural Settlement of Refugees 1922-1930. Oxford University Press, 2006. p. 268. ISBN 0-19-927896-2
  9. ↑ Decree of the President of January 20, 1927. Published in the government newspaper (Efimeris tis Kyvernisis) FEK 18, Volume A, p. 130, right column, point 29, of February 1, 1927. Available from National Printing Office of Greece (Ethniko Typografio) ( in Greek). Last accessed September 2, 2010.
  10. ↑ Decree of the President of December 12, 1927. Published in the government newspaper (Efimeris tis Kyvernisis) FEK 304, Volume A, p. 2373, left column, point 3, of December 21, 1927. Available from National Printing Office of Greece (Ethniko Typografio) ( in Greek). Last accessed September 2, 2010.
  11. ↑ Legislative Decree 1726 of the Greek Government of August 17, 1942. Published in the government newspaper (Efimeris tis Kyvernisis) FEK 228, Volume A, pp. 1372 ff., Of September 8, 1942. Available from National Printing Office of Greece (Ethniko Typografio) (in Greek ). Last accessed: September 5, 2010.
  12. ↑ Richard Clogg (Ed.). Minorities in Greece: Aspects of a Plural Society. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2002. p. 150. ISBN 1-85065-706-8
  13. ↑ Population development of the city of Ptolemaida 1913–2001, Greek Statistical Office ELSTAT, digital library (Greek)
  14. ↑ Nicholas Konsolas, Ilias Plaskovitis, Athanassios Papadaskalopoulos. Regional Development in Greece. Springer, 2002. p. 55. ISBN 3540423958
  15. ↑ Jürgen Grundwald. The energy law of the European Communities: ECSC-EURATOM-EC. Basics - history - applicable regulations. Walter de Gruyter, 2003. p. 190. ISBN 3899490789
  16. ↑ Michael Bauchmüller: Cold withdrawal . Süddeutsche Zeitung from 20./21. October 2018
  17. ↑ Mainpost from July 15, 2011: "Greeks are planning the world's largest solar power plant"
  18. ^ European Conference of Ministers (ECMT) of OECD countries. Transport Infrastructure in ECMT Countries: Profiles and Prospects. OECD Online Bookshop, 1998. p. 168. ISBN 9282112314