Cholargos (, also: ''Holargos'') is a town and a

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...

in the Athens urban area,

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

, located northeast of the

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

city proper and about away from Syntagma Square. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Papagou-Cholargos, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit. The municipal unit has an area of 3.950 km². The main thoroughfare is Mesogeion Avenue, which connects Cholargos with central Athens and the A6 motorway. Cholargos was the name of a

deme In Ancient Greece, a deme or (, plural: ''demoi'', δήμοι) was a suburb or a subdivision of Classical Athens, Athens and other city-states. Demes as simple subdivisions of land in the countryside existed in the 6th century BC and earlier, bu ...

of ancient

Attica Attica (, ''Attikḗ'' (Ancient Greek) or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the entire Athens metropolitan area, which consists of the city of Athens, the capital city, capital of Greece and the core cit ...

. The most prominent citizen of ancient Cholargos was

Pericles Pericles (; ; –429 BC) was a Greek statesman and general during the Golden Age of Athens. He was prominent and influential in Ancient Athenian politics, particularly between the Greco-Persian Wars and the Peloponnesian War, and was acclaimed ...

. Cholargos was part of the community of Chalandri until 1933, when it became a separate community. It became a municipality in 1963.

Name

The name ''“Cholargos”'' was given in honour of the

ancient Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history through late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the development of Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient h ...

municipality of the same name in

Ancient Athens Athens is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest named cities in the world, having been continuously inhabited for perhaps 5,000 years. Situated in southern Europe, Athens became the leading city of ancient Greece in t ...

, from which the famous Athenian

politician A politician is a person who participates in Public policy, policy-making processes, usually holding an elective position in government. Politicians represent the people, make decisions, and influence the formulation of public policy. The roles ...

and

general A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air force, air and space forces, marines or naval infantry. In some usages, the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colone ...

. Philological and archaeological (epigraphic) evidence, however, proves that the ancient

was in a quite different location from the present-day Cholargos, specifically near Ilion, perhaps also Kamatero.

History

In antiquity, today's Cholargos was part of the Athenian

of Phlya. Archaeological findings testify to the settlement of the area from the Early Helladic period. These finds are located at the foothills of Hymettus, while later ones testify to the existence of life during the Classical and

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

times. Many burial monuments date back to the 5th and 4th centuries BC. There are also signs of life from the Roman, Byzantine and late Byzantine periods, while during the times of Turkish rule the land of Cholargos remains deserted. On March 1, 1926, the cooperative ''‘Agropoleon Company’'' was founded in order to search for land for building. Its founder was Panagiotis Voutsinas and its members were Georgios Ventouris, Ioannis Katssibiris, Nikolaos Saligaros, Pasithea Zouroudi-Saligarou (wife of the former), Ioannis Karydis and Georgios Mansolas. The first house built by this Company was the two-storey mansion of its founder, Panagiotis Voutsinas, at the junction of Pericles Avenue and Evripidou Street. On August 10, 1937, the Community Council of Cholargos decided to rename Evripidou Street to Panagiotou Voutsinas' Street and the then President of the Community of Cholargos, Nikolaos Vitalis, placed a marble plaque next to the entrance of his mansion, which read: To Panagiotis Voutsinas, founder of Cholargos, in honor of him. In July 1962, the construction of the Church of Panagia Faneromeni of Cholargos began in the square of the same name, on the site of a small church of the same name that was demolished. Among those who made donations for the building of this church was Voutsinas, but the initiator of the project was the priest Ioannis Ventouris. It was part of the administrative region of the community of Chalandri and in 1930 it was detached from Chalandri and declared an autonomous community. During the period of occupation, a unit of the Italian army occupied Cholargos and established its headquarters. With the advance of the

Germans Germans (, ) are the natives or inhabitants of Germany, or sometimes more broadly any people who are of German descent or native speakers of the German language. The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, constitution of Germany, imple ...

, building activity ceased and by the time of the liberation of Greece, the area is in a very bad state. However, Cholargos is slowly rebuilt from the ashes, with its inhabitants turning to petty trade so that they can stand on their feet and rebuild their city. The first residential development of Cholargos began with the internal migration of Athenians in the 1960s, which triggered the mass construction of the area. In

, this period has been marked by the need to restore the capital and it's inhabitants in every way possible. This decade, as well as the following one, is the foundation of current form of the area. The typical apartment buildings of mass housing that are also being built in the centre of Athens are replacing the picturesque villas and elegant mansions of the old Cholargos. In a second phase, the operation of the Greek ‘Pentagon’ on the border with the central sector of Athens and the building saturation of the neighbouring Papagos by military workers motivated the preference for Cholargos. In the following years, with the development of the neighbouring municipalities of Chalandri and Agia Paraskevi and the introduction of the term ''‘Northern Suburbs’'', a geographically abstract term for that time, the value of real estate increased even more.

Climate

Cholargos, as most of Attica, features a typical

Mediterranean climate A Mediterranean climate ( ), also called a dry summer climate, described by Köppen and Trewartha as ''Cs'', is a temperate climate type that occurs in the lower mid-latitudes (normally 30 to 44 north and south latitude). Such climates typic ...

with hot, dry summers and cool, wet winters. Because of its location at the base of mountain Hymettus, Cholargos is strongly influenced by cold air masses that travel down the mountain, hence it is cooler that most of Athens, like downtown Athens or seaside locations. Below is the data for the Nomismatokpeio Station. The station is active since 1 July 2020, so 2021 is the only year which was registered whole. The following chart is not highly accurate, since it features only one year of record, but can be used as a guideline.

Historical population

Government and infrastructure

The headquarters of the Ministry of Infrastructure, Transport and Networks are in Cholargos.Contact
" Ministry of Infrastructure, Transport and Networks. Retrieved on 16 January 2013. "Addr 2, Anastaseos Str and Tsigante, Postal Code 101 91, Cholargos (next to metro station "Ethniki Amina")"
Address in Greek
"Διεύθυνση Αναστάσεως 2 και Τσιγάντε, Τ.Κ 101 91, Παπάγου (δίπλα στη στάση του μετρό "Εθνική Άμυνα")"

Gallery

File:Αισθητική Πόλης χολαργού Greece.jpg, City's aesthetic File:Άλσος Χολαργού Greece.jpg, Cholargos municipal park File:Αγία Τριάδα Χολαργός Greece.jpg, Agia Triada Church File:Χολαργός 3 Greece.jpg, Urban neighbourhood

References

External links

Official website
{{Authority control Populated places in North Athens (regional unit) Papagou-Cholargos