Salamis

(Local Name: Salamína) Area of island: 95 sq. km/37 sq. mi

Altitude: 365m/1,200ft

Population: 28,500

Chief town: Salamína (Kouloúri)

Salamis (modern Greek Salamína), the largest island in the Saronic Gulf, with a much indented coast, closes off the entrance to the Bay of Eleusis. Its limestone hills, much eroded by karstic action, bear a scanty growth of trees; but the island's modest agriculture, combined with some tourist trade, particularly in the southeast and northwest of the island, is no longer sufficient to support the population (mostly descendants of Albanian immigrants), who now find employment in the industrial installations (refineries, shipyards) which have been established around the naval base in the northeast of the island and on the east side of the Bay of Eleusis. The island owes its name (from shalam, "rest, peace") to Phoenician settlers from Cyprus. For long the subject of contention between Athens and Mégara, it was finally won for Athens by Solon and Peisistratos in 598 B.C. The ancient capital lay on a tongue of land between the bays of Kamateró and Ambeláki on the east coast; then in the sixth century B.C. it was moved south-west to Ambeláki (remains of acropolis and of harbor, visible under water).

Salamis is celebrated as the scene of the great naval battle in 480 B.C. in which the Athenians, their resources depleted by war, inflicted a devastating defeat with their force of 378 triremes on a much larger Persian fleet and thus finally frustrated Xerxes' plans to expand westward into Europe. The battle - which Aeschylus, an eye-witness, took as the theme of his tragedy "The Persians" - was fought in the waters to the east of Salamis, between the island of Áyios Yeóryios to the north and the island of Psyttaleia and the Kynosoura ("Dog's Tail") peninsula to the south. Xerxes is said to have watched the battle from Mt Aigaleos, above Pérama.

There are scanty remains of Mycenaean settlements at many points on the island.

Ferry (cars carried) from Pérama (5 km/3 mi west of Piraeus) and from Megálo Péfko (Mégara).