Piraeus (pronounced
/p?'ræ?s/;
Modern Greek ?e??a??? Peiraiás,
IPA&_160;
[pi?e'as],
Ancient Greek ?e??a?e?? Peiraieús,
IPA&_160;
[pi?e'efs]) is a city in the
periphery of Attica,
Greece, and a suburb located 9 km to the south-west of the center of
Athens. It is the capital of the
Piraeus Prefecture and belongs to the Athens
urban area, being the second most populous municipality of the Greek capital, following the Athens municipality. It was the port of the ancient city of
Athens and was chosen to serve as the modern port when the city re-emerged in 1834. Piraeus is the largest port in
Europe and the third largest in the world in terms of passenger transportation, servicing 19,000,000 passengers annually. The
Piraeus station is the terminus of
Line 1 (the "green line"), the electric train service now incorporated into the
Athens Metro. The uninhabited island of
Psyttaleia is also within municipal limits.
The population of the municipality of Piraeus is 175,697 (2001). The prefecture of Piraeus, which includes the surrounding land and some of the islands of the Saronic Gulf, has a population of 541,504 (2001).
Piraeus has been inhabited since the 26th century BC.[3] The name Piraeus roughly means the place over the passage. In very early antiquity Piraeus was a rocky island (the settlement of Munychia - the present Kastella) connected to the mainland by a low-lying stretch of land that was flooded with sea water most of the year and was used as a salt field whenever it dried up. Consequently it was called the "Halipedon" (salt field) and its muddy soil made it a tricky passage. The area was increasingly silted and flooding ceased, and by early classical times the land passage was made safe. It was then, in the late 6th century BC when the peninsula was first fortified by Hippias, that Piraeus assumed its importance as a deep water harbour, and the older, shallow Phaleron harbour fell into gradual disuse.
In Ancient Greece, Piraeus was a deme of Attica since the period of Cleisthenes, and a separate city from Athens, though closely related. Themistocles was the first to advise the Athenians to take advantage of Piraeus harbours' strategical potential, instead of using the sandy bay of Phaleron. Foreseeing a new attack by the Persians (after the Battle of Marathon), he built large fortification works and turned Piraeus into a military harbor in 493 BC. The shipyards that were created then, built the mighty Athenian fleet, which distinguished itself at the Battle of Salamis in 480 BC. Since then, Piraeus has been used as a navy base for the developed and powerful fleet of Athens in the Aegean Sea. The fortifications were completed by Cimon in 460 BC and Pericles during the Athenian Golden Age, when Piraeus was connected with Athens by the Long Walls reaching its biggest splendor, and the Themistoclean Walls were completed. As a result Piraeus flourished and became a port of high security with a great commercial activity, and a city throbbing with life. The original town of Piraeus was planned by the architect Hippodamus of Miletus in the famous grid system that he devised, probably in the time of Pericles. The main agora was named after him, as an honor.
