Serres (regional unit)

Serres regional unit Περιφερειακή Ενότητα Σερρών (Σέρρες)
Basic data
State :	Greece
Region :	Central Macedonia
Area :	3,968 km²
Residents :	176,430 (2011)
Population density :	44.5 inhabitants / km²
NUTS 3 code no. :	EL526
Structure:	7 municipalities
Website:	www.naserron.gr

Structure of the regional district

Kerkini Lake (Photo: Vlahos Vaggelis)

The village of Alistrati in winter.

The church tower of Agios Athanasios in Alistrati.

The 16th century Zinjirli mosque in Serres.

The Ioannis Prodromos Monastery near Serres.

View over the city of Serres.

Serres ( Greek Σέρρες , official name Periferiaki Enotita Serron ) is one of the seven regional districts of the Greek region of Central Macedonia , which is named after the capital Serres . Until the administrative reform of 2010 , the area had the status of a prefecture . With the reform, the competences of the prefecture were transferred to the region of Central Macedonia and the municipalities, which were greatly reduced by the amalgamation. The Serres regional district sends eight members to the Central Macedonian Regional Council, but has no political significance beyond that.

structure

The Serres regional district is divided into the following municipalities:

	local community	Residents
1	Serres (Δήμος Σερρών)	76,817
2	Amfipoli (Δήμος Αμφίπολης)	9,182
3	Visaltia (Δήμος Βισαλτίας)	20,030
4th	Emmanouil Pappas (Δήμος Εμμανουήλ Παππά)	14,664
5	Iraklia (Δήμος Ηρακλείας)	21,145
6th	Nea Zichni (Δήμος Νέας Ζίχνης)	12,397
7th	Sindiki (Δήμος Σιντικής)	22,195

geography

Serres is the easternmost of the seven regional districts of Central Macedonia and belongs to the Greek part of the geographical region Macedonia. The landscape of the area is characterized by the course of the river Strymonas and its extensive plains together with the surrounding mountain ranges, which give the overall impression of a large basin with access to the north and south. The north of the area borders North Macedonia in the northwest ; the border is formed by the Beles (or Kerkini ; 2031 m altitude) mountain range , which runs in a west-east direction. The three-country triangle Greece, North Macedonia and Bulgaria is still in the course of the Beles mountain range. The border with Bulgaria extends further east along the Beles mountain range to the Roupel Valley. In this the river Strymonas (Bulgarian Struma) comes from the north to Serres. The eastern boundary of the Roupel Valley or Roupel Pass is formed by the mountain ranges of the Orvilos (2212 m altitude), which also represent the physical border between Serres and Bulgaria to the north. After passing through the Roupel Valley between Beles and Orvilos, the Strymonas swings to the west and in the northern part of the area flows into the Kerkini Lake, which was dammed up in the early 20th century . This fills the northern part of the Strymonas plain and receives further tributaries from the west south of the Beles. The Kerkini Lake, aligned from northwest to southeast in the original course axis of the Strymonas, tapers to the southeast. South of its barrage, the Strymonas runs from northeast to southwest in the direction of the Aegean Sea to the confluence of its left tributary Angiitis . The river plain of the Strymonas is very fertile and is used intensively for agriculture. The degree of utilization was considerably intensified in the 20th century by the canalization of the Strymonas and its tributaries, the construction of the Kerkini lake, the drainage of the Tachinos lake and the surrounding wetlands. To the west of the Strymonas course, the mountain ranges of Mavrovouni (Krousia) (1179 m altitude), Vertsikos (1103 m altitude) and Kerdylio (1091 m altitude) rise parallel to the course of the river at a distance of a few kilometers from the river . The eastern and northern flanks of the aforementioned mountain ranges form the western highlands of the area. Between the Kerdylio in the west and the Pangeo (1900 m) in the east, the river Strymonas breaks through the two mountain ranges in a valley and reaches the Strymonic Gulf of the Aegean, named after it . To the west and east of the Strymonas estuary is the broad coastline of the Aegean Sea. Both Kerdylio and Pangeo close the Strymonas plain to the south. On the northern edge of the Pangeo, the Angiitis flows from east-northeast to west-southwest, which flows into the latter a little north of the mountain breakthrough of the Strymonas towards the Aegean Sea. Angiitis shapes the southern part of the Strymonas plain in its lower reaches. In its upper reaches it forms a partially narrow mountain valley, which is bordered to the south by the Pangeo and north by the Menoiko (1963 m altitude). In the upper reaches of the Angiitis there are also karst phenomena such as the Alistrati caves. The Menoiko ridge runs from southeast to northwest and merges into the Vrondous (1667 m altitude) in its northwest and the Orvilos in its north. The Menoiko, Vrondous and Orvilos chain form the eastern boundary of the Strymonas Plain. In contrast to the western boundary of the mountains, the distance between the mountains and the Strymonas river is significantly greater, so that the largest areas of the Strymonas plain are to the east of the river.

history

In ancient times , the area of ​​the Serres regional district belonged to the settlement and rule of the Thracians . As part of the Greek colonization, settlements were founded between the 8th and 6th centuries BC, which were mainly located on the Aegean coast and served the control of ore extraction in the Pangeo Mountains and trade. The first colonists were the inhabitants of the island of Thasos , whose settlements on the mainland formed the so-called Thasitic Peraia . The port city of Eion at the mouth of the Strymonas in the Aegean Sea was a settlement of the Thasitian Peraia in the area of ​​the Serres regional district . 437 BC Athens founded the city (Polis) Amphipolis north of Eion , which Eion (or Ennea Odoi) served as a port city. The control of Amphipolis and with it the mines of the Pangeo led to the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. Amphipolis was repeatedly at the center of the war until the Peace of Nicias in 421 BC. 356 BC The Macedonian king Philip II conquered Amphipolis and extended his kingdom to the east to the territory of the regional district. This remained until 168 BC. BC under Macedonian control: with the Macedonian defeat against the Roman Empire , the Romans became rulers of the region.

With the division of the Roman Empire in 395 AD, the area of ​​Serres fell to the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire . This retained exclusive control here until the 6th century. The settlement of Slavic tribes in the sixth century AD and the emergence of the Bulgarian Empire weakened Byzantine rule in the centuries that followed. The area repeatedly came under the control of the Bulgarian Empire (e.g. Battle of Kleidion 1014). In the 11th century AD, the Byzantine Empire consolidated its control of the area for nearly a century. In 1204 Constantinople fell in the Fourth Crusade and the Byzantine Empire was replaced by the Latin Empire and other crusader states. The present regional district came to the Kingdom of Thessaloniki , but only remained under its control for a short time: the resurgent Bulgarian Empire conquered the area from the Kingdom of Thessaloniki and kept it until it was reconquered by the Nikaia Empire in the middle of the 13th century. The subsequent Byzantine rule ended in the middle of the 14th century with the advance of the Serbian King Stefan Dušan , who was able to conquer large parts of today's Greece, including Serres. After his death in 1355, a Serbian local prince in the city of Serres was able to take control of the country before the Ottoman Empire conquered the area in the 1380s.

Belonging to modern Greece only came about as a result of the Second Balkan War in 1913 and the subsequent Peace of Bucharest. Serres had previously been under the rule of the Ottoman Empire since the late 14th century, which ended in 1912 with the Ottoman defeat in the First Balkan War in 1912. Between the first and second Balkan Wars, Serres was controlled by Bulgaria. During the First World War , the region was the scene of heavy fighting between the powers of the Entente on the one hand and the Central Powers , especially Bulgaria, on the other. Greek neutrality prompted the withdrawal of Greek troops in 1916, initially from the fortifications of the Roupel Pass, and in the further course of the year also the evacuation of the entire area without a fight, which was subsequently controlled by Bulgarian armed forces. Between the Bulgarian and the English and French troops of the Entente states ( Saloniki Front ) there were repeated heavy fights in the further course of the war, in which Greek troops also took part from 1917 when Greece entered the war under Eleftherios Venizelos . In 1918 the Entente armed forces succeeded in forcing the withdrawal of the predominantly Bulgarian but also German troops through an offensive.

In the 1920s, Serres prefecture underwent major agricultural changes. The previously existing lakes Tachinos and Kerkinitis as well as the marshland west and east of the Strymonas were drained and the Strymonas regulated by the damming of the Kerkini lake. The agricultural area gained in this way as well as the reduction of the floods in the course of the Strymonas also served to settle Greek refugees from Asia Minor and the Black Sea, who had to leave their original settlement areas as a result of the defeat of Greece in the Greco-Turkish War in 1922 and the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 and settled proportionally in the area of ​​the Serres prefecture. They were also able to take possession of agricultural goods and dwellings, which previously belonged to Turkish residents of today's Serres regional district: they had to leave the area of ​​the prefecture in 1923 (so-called "population exchange"). Already in the course of the Balkan Wars in 1912 and 1913 and in the course of the First World War, the population composition of the area changed considerably as a result of refugee movements. Slavic residents (viewed partly as Bulgarian, partly as Macedonian, depending on the point of view) also had to leave the area.

Before the Second World War , the northern border of the prefecture was fortified by the military barriers of the Metaxas line on the Greek side. As part of the Marita company , troops of the German Wehrmacht (12th Army) attacked Greece on April 6, 1941: a focus of the Wehrmacht's military attack operations was the conquest of the Roupel Pass, which succeeded on April 9, 1941 after heavy fighting. The following surrender of the Greek armed forces in Central and Eastern Macedonia brought the prefecture under German control. In 1941 the prefecture was evacuated by German troops and Bulgarian troops took over the occupying power. At the end of October 1944, the Bulgarian armed forces withdrew from the area of ​​the prefecture parallel to the German armed forces.

Web links

• Serres Regional Office website
• Alistrati Cave
• Portal via Serres
• Aerial views of the Serres prefecture

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)