Gra Lygia () is located approximately 4 km west of

Ierapetra Ierapetra (; ancient name: ) is a Greece, Greek city and municipality located on the southeast coast of Crete. History The town of Ierapetra (in the local dialect: Γεράπετρο ''Gerapetro'') is located on the southeast coast of Crete, sit ...

center. Its residents are called "GraLighiotes". They are occupied mainly in the

agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

sector; this is the main source of

income Income is the consumption and saving opportunity gained by an entity within a specified timeframe, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. Income is difficult to define conceptually and the definition may be different across fields. F ...

for the residents and their

income per capita The median income is the income amount that divides a population into two groups, half having an income above that amount, and half having an income below that amount. It may differ from the mean (or average) income. Both of these are ways of under ...

is one of the highest in the region. The

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

is surrounded by

greenhouse A greenhouse is a structure that is designed to regulate the temperature and humidity of the environment inside. There are different types of greenhouses, but they all have large areas covered with transparent materials that let sunlight pass an ...

s which demonstrates that the agriculture sector is modernized. There are many firms in related fields such as agriculture companies that co-operate with multinationals. In recent years there has been a lot of development in the village's

standard of living Standard of living is the level of income, comforts and services available to an individual, community or society. A contributing factor to an individual's quality of life, standard of living is generally concerned with objective metrics outsid ...

. Young people can enjoy the presence of

cafeteria A cafeteria, called canteen outside the U.S., is a type of food service location in which there is little or no waiting staff table service, whether in a restaurant or within an institution such as a large office building or school; a scho ...

internet cafes The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a network of networks that consists of private, publ ...

snack bar A snack bar usually refers to an inexpensive food counter that is part of a permanent structure where snack foods and light meals are sold. Description A beach snack bar is often a small building situated high on the sand. Besides soft drink ...

kebab shop Kebab ( , ), kebap, kabob (alternative North American spelling), kebob, or kabab (Kashmiri spelling) is a variety of roasted meat dishes that originated in the Middle East. Kebabs consist of cut up ground meat, sometimes with vegetables a ...

s, and DVD rentals. Major shops are Linux cafe (internet cafe), gyrovolies (kebab shop), Joanna ( clothwear), Avantage (cafe bar) and others. There are two relatively big

supermarket A supermarket is a self-service Retail#Types of outlets, shop offering a wide variety of food, Drink, beverages and Household goods, household products, organized into sections. Strictly speaking, a supermarket is larger and has a wider selecti ...

s and several corner shops that give a good shopping and

leisure Leisure (, ) has often been defined as a quality of experience or as free time. Free time is time spent away from business, Employment, work, job hunting, Housekeeping, domestic chores, and education, as well as necessary activities such as ...

environment to the

community A community is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given g ...

. The community enjoys high

multicultural Multiculturalism is the coexistence of multiple cultures. The word is used in sociology, in political philosophy, and colloquially. In sociology and everyday usage, it is usually a synonym for ''ethnic'' or cultural pluralism in which various e ...

environment as a lot of

immigrants Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as permanent residents. Commuters, tourists, and other short- ...

live here and contribute to the local economy mainly as manual workers. The immigrants are mainly for countries of the former

Communist bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc (Combloc), the Socialist Bloc, the Workers Bloc, and the Soviet Bloc, was an unofficial coalition of communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America that were a ...

. The majority of them comes from

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

and

Albania Albania ( ; or ), officially the Republic of Albania (), is a country in Southeast Europe. It is located in the Balkans, on the Adriatic Sea, Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea, and shares land borders with Montenegro to ...

, but also from countries such as

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

etc.

Sport Sport is a physical activity or game, often Competition, competitive and organization, organized, that maintains or improves physical ability and skills. Sport may provide enjoyment to participants and entertainment to spectators. The numbe ...

s are highly popular in the village, especially

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

and

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

. The basketball team of Lygia won the double in the local

championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this sys ...

of the Cretan League and got promoted in the Third National Division for the 2006-2007 season. There are some sports facilities such as a basketball and

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

court in the

elementary school A primary school (in Ireland, India, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, and Singapore), elementary school, or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ...

and a small football stadium in the Kotsyfiani church area. The village is near the seaside looking over to the

Libyan Sea The Libyan Sea (; ; ) is the portion of the Mediterranean Sea north of the North Africa, African coast of Ancient Libya, ancient ''Libya'', i.e. Cyrenaica, and Marmarica (the coast of what is now Butnan District, eastern Libya and Matrouh Gov ...

and is a great place for swimming and summer sports. Each summer some tournaments such as

beach football Beach soccer, also known as beach football, sand football or sand soccer, is a variant of association football played on a beach or some form of sand between two teams of five players each. Association football has long been played informally on ...

are organised at the local beach. During the summer the beach is very popular as a lot of people with origins from Gra-Lighia spend their holidays in the village. Local people enjoy

sailing Sailing employs the wind—acting on sails, wingsails or kites—to propel a craft on the surface of the ''water'' (sailing ship, sailboat, raft, Windsurfing, windsurfer, or Kitesurfing, kitesurfer), on ''ice'' (iceboat) or on ''land'' (Land sa ...

and

fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment (Freshwater ecosystem, freshwater or Marine ecosystem, marine), but may also be caught from Fish stocking, stocked Body of water, ...

and they possess small

boat A boat is a watercraft of a large range of types and sizes, but generally smaller than a ship, which is distinguished by its larger size or capacity, its shape, or its ability to carry boats. Small boats are typically used on inland waterways s ...

s that one can see in the

marina A marina (from Spanish , Portuguese and Italian : "related to the sea") is a dock or basin with moorings and supplies for yachts and small boats. A marina differs from a port in that a marina does not handle large passenger ships or cargo ...

of the village. A big problem for this community is the dangerous

road network A street network is a system of interconnecting lines and points (called ''edges'' and ''nodes'' in network science) that represent a system of streets or roads for a given area. A street network provides the foundation for network analysis; for e ...

that surround the village and lead to deadly

accident An accident is an unintended, normally unwanted event that was not deliberately caused by humans. The term ''accident'' implies that the event may have been caused by Risk assessment, unrecognized or unaddressed risks. Many researchers, insurers ...

s especially among

youth Youth is the time of life when one is young. The word, youth, can also mean the time between childhood and adulthood (Maturity (psychological), maturity), but it can also refer to one's peak, in terms of health or the period of life known as bei ...

that use

motorbikes A motorcycle (motorbike, bike; uni (if one-wheeled); trike (if three-wheeled); quad (if four-wheeled)) is a lightweight private 1-to-2 passenger personal motor vehicle steered by a handlebar from a saddle-style seat. Motorcycle designs var ...

. Notable persons with origins from Gra Lighia are Ioannis Pyrgiotakis who is ex

vice-chancellor A vice-chancellor (commonly called a VC) serves as the chief executive of a university in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Kenya, other Commonwealth of Nati ...

of the

University of Crete The University of Crete (UoC; Greek: Πανεπιστήμιο Κρήτης) is a multi-disciplinary, research-oriented institution in Crete, Greece, located in the cities of Rethymno (official seat) and Heraklion. There are 16 main undergraduate ...

and Ioannis (Marinos) Gaitanakis (mother side) one of the top basketball player (

shooting guard The shooting guard (SG), also known as the two, two guard or off guard,Shooting guards are 6'3"–6'7"BBC Sports academy URL last accessed 2006-09-09. is one of the five traditional basketball positions, positions in a regulation basketball game ...

) that ever appeared in Ierapetra. He has the record for most

points per game Points per game, often abbreviated PPG, is the average number of points scored by a player or team per game played in a sport, over the course of a series of games, a whole season, or a career. It is calculated by dividing the total number of poi ...

(55)

References

{{coord, 35, 00, 54, N, 25, 41, 32, E, display=title, region:GR_source:nlwiki Populated places in Lasithi Ierapetra