Khios

Khios or Chios, as most Greek English speakers know the island, is a Greek island in the Aegean Sea.

Population is about 52,290 (census of 2001). Area 910 km². The capital is also called Khíos, it is a port and the island's chief town. Other settlements include Volissos, Kardamylla and Oinoussais, on a small but wealthy island nearby (5km.). The island is famous for its scenery and good climate.

The island's chief export is mastic but it also produces olives, figs, and wine.

The Korai Library, in Khios, is one of the most important in Greece, it contains 95,000 volumes.

Khíos 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 (there was a massacre of the islanders after a rebellion in 1822), depicted by Eugène Delacroix in his famous artwork at The Louvre, and finally Khios 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 Mastichohorio, the mastic growing villages in the south of the island. It triggered enormous public outrage in Western Europe, viz Delacroix's art and Lord Byron[1]'s involvement.

Khíos claims to be the birthplace of Homer, Hippokrates the mathematician, and Oenopides. Oenopion, a legendary king, is said to have brought winemaking to the island.

These days it is home to one of the biggest ship-owning fraternities in Greece!