Psará

Chief place: Psará

The bare rocky island of Psará, ancient Psyra (Mycenaean tombs found), lies 18 km/11 mi northwest of Chios. The chief place, also called Psará, is on the south coast, below a medieval castle. To the northeast is the monastery of the Dormition (Kímisis Theotókou).

Psará had a period of considerable prosperity in the 18th century, when the descendants of Albanians who had settled on the island in the 16th and 17th centuries made it the third naval power in the Aegean, after Hydra and Spétsai. The island's dilapidated old mansions and the stumps of windmills on the hills bear witness to this period, when Psará had a population of 20,000. Then, in reprisal for the islanders' stubborn resistance an Egyptian force landed on the island and slaughtered 15,000 inhabitants. Part of the population was able to flee. After Psará became part of the new kingdom of Greece in the 19th century it was resettled from Chios. The population lives by farming and seafaring.

Southwest of Psará is the smaller island of Antipsara.