Chalcis

Main town of the Greek island of Euboea, in the Central Greece and Euboea region; population (1990) 50,000. Chalcis is an important trading centre for dairy and agricultural produce; the harbour exports mineral ores, cement, timber, wines, olives, and imports coal and other fuels.

The site was occupied in the Bronze Age. Later it was a great centre of colonization, and in the 8th and 7th centuries BC it founded over 30 towns on the Chalcidice peninsula, as well as Cumae in Italy in about 750 BC and Naxos in Sicily in 735 BC. In the 5th and 4th centuries BC Chalcis was subject to Athens. The philosopher Aristotle died there in 322 BC. Chalcis was important in the Middle Ages, when it was called Egripo by the Greeks and Negroponte by the Venetians.

Chalcis has ruined medieval walls and towers of Venetian construction, and mosques, mostly converted into churches; it is the seat of an Orthodox archbishop. In 1894 an earthquake damaged much of the town. Since 1904 a railway has connected it with Athens and Peiraias.