Chios Hotel
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Chios
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A few words about Chios:
Khios (ΧΙΟΣ in Greek), or Chios or Hios 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 Chios or Khora; it is a port and the island's chief
town. Other settlements include Vrondados, Volissos, Kardamylla, Oinoussais,
Agios Giorgios Sikousis, and Vavili. The island is famous for its scenery and
good climate. Its chief export is mastic but it also produces olives, figs,
and wine.
History
Chios 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. Chios 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, in the writing of Lord Byron and
Victor Hugo.
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