Ano Liosia (Greek: Άνω Λιόσια, 'Upper Liosia')[2] is a town and a former municipality in the northern part of the Athens agglomeration, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Fyli, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit.[3] The municipal unit has an area of 38.447 km2.[4]

Name

The placename Ano Liosia is derived from the surname Liosas and stems from the Albanian Loshi.[5] In Arvanitika, the word is rendered as ljioshe, and also as ljosh-i and describes 'a smooth, grassy mountain location ideal for grazing; a pasture'.[5] In the medieval period, the toponym Loshi is recorded by Greek writers as Leosas.[5] According to Arvanite villagers in Ano Liosia, they described the placename as meaning "stranger" in Arvanitika.[2]

Geography

Ano Liosia lies in the eastern part of West Attica, between the mountains Parnitha to its north and Aigaleo to its southwest. It is 3 km west of Acharnes, 3 km north of Kamatero, 4 km southeast of Fyli, 10 km east of Aspropyrgos, and 11 km north of Athens city centre. Nearby the main road in Liosia is the small monastery of Agios Ioannis Theologos.[6]

Transportation

Ano Liosia Proastiakos station

The Ano Liosia railway station is served by Proastiakos trains to the Athens International Airport and to Kiato in the Peloponnese. The railway station on the old metric Piraeus–Patras railway is now closed. Ano Liosia is connected to the rest of Athens by various bus lines, most notably the B12 and 711 lines. The A6 motorway runs south of the town.

History

In the late fourteenth century, Liosia was founded by Albanian Christians during their early settlement of the area.[6] In the early 20th century, Ano Liosia was a village bordering Athens.[7] In the 1950s and 1960s, internal migrants in Greece arrived in the area and many illegally settled on surrounding agricultural land owned by Ano Liosia, which later became the separate settlement of Zefyri.[7] Between the 1960s and 1970s, Ano Liosia went from being a semi-rural community to an extension of Athens.[2][7] The Arvanite population of Ano Liosia, descended from Albanians, sold undeveloped land without title to an incoming rural Greek population who sought affordable plots, resulting in illegal construction and shanty dwellings.[2]

Ano Liosia was one of several suburbs heavily impacted by the 1999 Athens earthquake, which caused damage to 150 buildings.[8][9] In the early 21st century, Ano Liosia had a negative reputation due to its landfill, pollution levels, and the local Roma population.[10]

Demographics

YearPopulation
19511,660
19613,348
197111,388
198116,862
199121,397
200126,423
201133,565
202135,047

The primary population of Ano Liosia were Arvanites, who spoke Arvanitika and originated from Albanians who settled in Attica.[2] Arvanitika continued to be spoken in Ano Liosia during the mid-1960s.[11][12] Between the 1960s and 1970s, the population increased as Greeks originating from rural and island areas moved to Athens.[2] During this time, social tensions arose between local Arvanites and incoming Greeks due to the demographic influx, while community-led social welfare initiatives attempted to overcome differences.[2]

During the late 20th century, the population of Ano Liosia was 30,000.[13] In Ano Liosia, some Roma were permanently established residents, while substantial numbers of tent-dwelling Roma nomads living on the periphery of the municipality settled at a so-called campsite in 1982.[14] The locality lacked essential infrastructure and rapidly transformed into a ghetto with difficult living conditions.[14] In fieldwork done by sociologist Anna Lydaki, 2,000 inhabitants were Romani people, while the community themselves estimated their numbers at 5,000.[13] The Romani people in Ano Liosia were mainly nomadic.[15] Tense relations exist between the Romani and non-Romani populations in Ano Liosia, where the local community remains segregated from the wider society.[16] In the early 21st century, the Roma population of Ano Liosia numbered 3,000.[17]

Crime

Ano Liosia is considered one of the most dangerous ghettos of Greece and along with its neighbouring cities Acharnes and Zefyri hold the highest crime rates of the whole country.[18][19] Many drug addicts from various districts of Attica arrive to Ano Liosia as it is a convenient region to find their dose owing to the many dealers and the low to absent police patrols.[18]

Sports

The 11th International Chess Tournament took place in Ano Liosia in 2001. The following sports teams are based in Ano Liosia:

Sports venues:

References

  1. ↑ "Αποτελέσματα Απογραφής Πληθυσμού - Κατοικιών 2021, Μόνιμος Πληθυσμός κατά οικισμό" [Results of the 2021 Population - Housing Census, Permanent population by settlement] (in Greek). Hellenic Statistical Authority. 29 March 2024.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Pelekan, Cerise M. (1974). "The Experiment At Ano Liosia: A Field for International Social Work Practicum". International Social Work. 17 (4): 5.
  3. ↑ "ΦΕΚ B 1292/2010, Kallikratis reform municipalities" (in Greek). Government Gazette.
  4. ↑ "Population & housing census 2001 (incl. area and average elevation)" (PDF) (in Greek). National Statistical Service of Greece. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-09-21.
  5. 1 2 3 "Ποια τοπωνύμια στην Αττική είναι αρβανίτικα" [Which toponyms in Attica are from Arvanitika] (in Greek). In.gr. 30 November 2018. Archived from the original on 24 August 2025. Retrieved 27 June 2026.
  6. 1 2 Pallis, Georgios (2008). "The Topography of the Athenian Plain under Ottoman Rule (1456-1821)". The Historical Review/La Revue Historique. 4: 38. Archived from the original on 7 October 2025. its foundation is attributed to the first colonisation of Albanian Christians, at the end of the fourteenth century. From this point the road continues to the settlement of Liosia, which was founded in the same colonisation, and reaches Haghios Ioannis Theologos, a small monastery
  7. 1 2 3 Kitsiou, Triada (1981). Popular Urban Settlements in Athens: A Comparative Study of Low Income Housing (PDF) (M.S. thesis). Massachusetts Institute of Technology. p. 20. Archived (PDF) from the original on 19 August 2017. Retrieved 21 June 2026.
  8. ↑ Antoniou, Stelios; Elnashai, Amr Salah Eldin (2000). "Observations on Damage of R/C Structures in the Northern Athens, Greece Earthquake of September 1999". In Antoniou, Stelios; Elnashai, Amr Salah Eldin (eds.). Implications Of Recent Earthquakes On Seismic Risk: Proceedings Of The 3rd Workshop. Imperial College Press. pp. 21–22. ISBN 9781783261703.
  9. ↑ Pomonis, A.; Kappos, A.; Karababa, F.; Panagopoulos, G. (2011). "Seismic Vulnerability and Collapse Probability Assessment of Buildings in Greece". In Spence, Robin; So, Emily; Scawthorn, Charles (eds.). Human Casualties in Earthquakes: Progress in Modelling and Mitigation. Springer. p. 158. ISBN 9789048194551.
  10. ↑ Dalakoglou, Dimitris; Kallianos, Yannis (2014). "Infrastructural Flows, Interruptions and Stasis in Athens of the Crisis". In Brekke, Jaya; Dalakoglou, Dimitris; Filippidis, Christos; Vradis, Antonis (eds.). Crisis-scapes: Athens and Beyond. Crisis-Scape.net. p. 25. ISBN 9781938660153.
  11. ↑ Sasse, Hans-Jürgen (1991). Arvanitika: Die albanischen Sprachreste in Griechenland. Teil 1 [Arvanitika: The Remainders of the Albanian Language in Greece. Part I] (in German). Otto Harrassowitz. p. 27. ISBN 9783447027588. Heute gibt es zwar auch im südlicheren Attika nur noch wenige aktive Sprecher... doch war noch während der Anfangszeit meiner Untersuchungen um die Mitte der sechziger Jahre in mehreren Dörfen Südwestattikas (Chasia, Liosia
  12. ↑ Sasse, Hans-Jürgen (1998). "Arvanitika: The Long Hellenic Centuries of an Albanian Variety". International Journal of the Sociology of Language (134): 58. Arvanitika was still frequently spoken on the street and in the coffee houses around 1965. At the end of the 1960s I used to work with excellent speakers, both female and male, in villages such as Aspropirgos, Ano Liosia
  13. 1 2 Kozaitis, Kathryn A. (1999). "Balame kai Roma [Non-Gypsy Greeks and Gypsies]. Anna Lydaki. Athens: Kastaniotis, 1997. 181 pp. (paper). ISBN 960-03-2059-4". Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society. 9 (2): 147. Of the 30,000 residents of Ano Liosia, an estimated 2,000 persons are Roma. Roma themselves report the local population of Gypsies to be nearly 5,000.
  14. 1 2 Logos Associates E.P.E. 2010, p. 118.
  15. ↑ Tafa, Eufimia; Chlouverakis, Gregory (1999). "Measurement and Evaluation of Reading Ability of Gypsy Children". In Rigas, Anastasia-Valentine (ed.). Education of Ethnic Minorities: Unity and Diversity. Proceedings of the 12th World Congress, Rethymno, Crete-Greece, May 9-12, 1997. Ellinika Grammata. p. 465. ISBN 9789603447757. Gypsy families in the area of Ano Liosia live as nomads taking their children with them
  16. ↑ Lydaki, Anna (1997). Μπαλαμέ και Ρομά: Οι Τσιγγάνοι των Άνω Λιοσίων [Balame and Roma: The Gypsies of Ano Liosia] (in Greek). Kastaniotis. p. 93. ISBN 9789600320596. κοινωνία των Άνω Λιοσίων είναι σαφώς διαχωρισμένη από την ευρύτερη κοινωνία και οι σχέσεις μεταξύ Τσιγγάνων και μη Τσιγγάνων στην περιοχή αυτή είναι τεταμένες.
  17. ↑ Logos Associates E.P.E. (2010). Σχέδιο Δράσης για την προσέγγιση των Ρομά μέσω εκπαιδευτικών δράσεων που θα προωθηθούν σε συνέργεια με την εκστρατεία ευαισθητοποίησης «DOSTA» [Action Plan for approaching the Roma through educational activities to be promoted in synergy with the awareness campaign 'DOSTA'] (PDF). Managing Authority of the Operational Programme "Education and Lifelong Learning" (ΕΥΔ ΕΠΕΔΒΜ) (Report) (in Greek). Greek Ministry of Education, Lifelong Learning and Religious Affairs. pp. 77, 118. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2 December 2017. Retrieved 27 June 2026.
  18. 1 2 ""Γκέτο" συμμοριών η Δυτική Αττική: Ο "χάρτης" της βίας". City View (in Greek). 10 June 2017.
  19. ↑ "Χάος, συμμορίες και πυροβολισμοί στην Δυτική Αττική με την εγκληματικότητα στο "κόκκινο"". Ελεύθερος Τύπος (in Greek). 18 May 2018.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ano_Liosia