Thasos

Greeks from Paros founded a colony on Thasos around 650 BC. A generation later the poet Archilochus, a descendant of those settlers, described the island as "an ass's backbone crowned with wild wood". Gold mines, wine, nuts and marble made the island rich, and its capital, on the site of Limenas, had two harbours. Prosperity drew powerful enemies: Darius I of Persia forced the Thasians to give up their ships and pull down their walls, and later Athens defeated the island's navy and took the capital after a two-year siege. Thasos changed hands between Athens and Sparta and was disputed with Philip II of Macedon.

The island remained a major source of marble until the Slavic invasions of the late 6th and 7th centuries. It served as a Byzantine naval base in the 13th century and passed to the Genoese, first under Tedisio Zaccaria in 1307–13 and later under the Gattilusi family, before the Ottomans took it. Under Ottoman rule the inland village of Theologos served as the capital, and pirates destroyed the settlement at Aliki in 1651. A Russian fleet occupied the island in 1770–74, and in 1813 the Sultan gave Thasos to Muhammad Ali of Egypt as a personal fiefdom.

The Greek navy took the island on 20 October 1912, during the First Balkan War. In the Axis occupation of 1941–44 it was assigned to Bulgaria, which renamed it "Tasos" and closed its schools. Since the 1960s tourism has transformed the coast, though wildfires have repeatedly scarred its forests, most destructively in 2013 and 2016.

Thasos has a long written record. Archilochus wrote of the island in the 7th century BC, and Hippocrates made some of the earliest systematic observations of its climate in the 5th century BC, noting that winter generally resembled spring. The ancient city's ruins are woven into modern Limenas: the agora lies beside the old fishing harbour, and the city walls and gates run through the gardens and woods above it.

Village life keeps its own character in the hill settlements. Theologos, the Ottoman capital, preserves stone houses and churches, Potamia honours its native son, the Greek-American sculptor Polygnotos Vagis, with a museum of his work, and Panagia is the stop for visitors coming up from the beaches below. The local church belongs to the Metropolis of Philippi, Neapolis and Thasos, shared with Kavala across the strait.

The island attracts different crowds to different coasts: the developed south and east sides draw younger visitors, while older travellers often prefer the quieter west side between Limenas and Limenaria.

About 13,000 people live on the island, and Limenas, the largest town, had about 3,300 at the 2021 census; Limenaria is the second-largest settlement. Thasos forms its own regional unit within East Macedonia and Thrace, having been split from the Kavala prefecture in 2011.

Tourism is the most important part of the economy. Farming produces honey, almonds, walnuts, olives — including the protected Throumba variety — olive oil and wine, and islanders also fish and herd sheep and goats. The only mining in recent decades has been marble quarrying, especially around Panagia, where a large quarry works the mountainside; the oil-producing Prinos basin lies offshore between the island and the mainland.

The year is sharply seasonal. In summer the resorts and the ferries are full, with long queues at Keramoti on Friday afternoons and at Limenas on Sunday afternoons; in winter most hotels and tavernas on the beaches close, and life returns to the villages and the main town.

The island's best-known products come from its forests and olive groves. Dark pine honey is sold everywhere, as are fruits and vegetables preserved in very sweet syrup. The local Throumba olive carries a protected designation of origin, and olive oil, almonds and walnuts are other island staples, as they have been since nuts and wine made the island's name in antiquity.

Tavernas around the coast serve the catch of the island's fishing boats, and the harbours of Limenas, Limenaria and the smaller villages are lined with places to eat by the water. Tsipouro, a pomace brandy, is made and sold on the island and drunk with meze, and local wine continues a trade that was famous in antiquity.

The weekly Monday market in Prinos and shops in Limenas sell honey, preserves, oil and olives, and the villages of the interior keep a quieter, more traditional kitchen than the resort strips, built on the island's own olives, honey and the produce of its farms and flocks of sheep and goats.