Salonica

In summer the weather is not infrequently oppressively hot, since the area of water in the Gulf of Salonica is too small to exert a moderating influence.

Salonica's economic importance depends on its role as a busy seaport (the largest in Greece after Piraeus) and a developing industrial center. Its industries - predominantly on the western outskirts of the town - include a steelworks, an oil refinery, factories producing artificial fertilisers, cement, animal feeds, sugar, vegetable oils and other foodstuffs, engineering and shipbuilding. Old-established local industries are the processing of tobacco (from the tobacco-growing areas in eastern Macedonia), leather goods and textiles.

With excellent communications - shipping services, trunk roads, main-line rail services, an international airport - Salonica has developed an active trade both within Greece and with other countries.

The Salonica Trade Fair, held annually in autumn, is an event of international importance.

Salonica is the principal cultural center in northern Greece, with a major University (founded 1925), the National Theater of Northern Greece (founded 1961), which is also an opera house, and the Salonica National Orchestra (KOTh); it is the see of a Greek Orthodox metropolitan (archbishop); and it has an important Archeological Museum, numerous Byzantine churches, some notable Roman remains and a number of buildings of the Turkish period.

The old town of Salonica, rising from the shores of the gulf on the slopes of a western outlier of the Khortiátis range, roughly in the form of a large square, is bounded on the landward side by a massive battlemented Byzantine wall, reinforced by towers, above which is a citadel dating in its present form from the Venetian period. The rest of the walls, on the southeast side and along the seafront, were demolished in the 19th century except for the White Tower at the southeast corner and the Vardar Fort at the southwest corner. On both sides of the walled town there were formerly large cemetery areas - on the northwest for Christians and Muslims, on the southeast for the Jews who made up a large proportion of the population; the site of the Jewish cemetery is now occupied by the Trade Fair grounds and the University campus.

The lower (southern) part of the old town is relatively flat and is traversed by wide boulevard-like streets. This area was rebuilt on a spacious scale after a devastating fire in 1917, leaving such ancient monuments as survived or were restored to form small cultural oases among the modern buildings.

Above this the older part of the town reaches up the hill to the ancient walls - a maze of irregular streets out of which rise the domes of old churches. The minarets of the Turkish period were destroyed after the World War I with the exception of a few remnants.

In recent times the city has expanded far beyond its old limits. The growth began with the development of a large residential area in the southeastern suburb of Kalamaria, while industry established itself mainly on the northwest side of the town.

The city's life centers on the seafront promenade which extends east to the White Tower, the elongated Aristotle Square (Platía Aristotelous) half way along and Aristotle Street (Odós Aristotelous), with its attractive gardens, which runs northeast from there to the market quarter and its numerous tavernas. At right angles to Aristotle Street are Mitropolis Street and Tzimiskis Street, with Salonica's mo