Tripoli, Peloponnese, Peloponnese, Western Greece and the Ionian, Greece

🇬🇷 Tripoli is a city in the central part of the Peloponnese, in Greece. It is the capital of the Peloponnese region as well as of the regional unit of Arcadia.

Etymology In the Middle Ages the place was known as Drobolitsa, Droboltsá, or Dorboglitza, either from the Greek Hydropolitsa, 'Water City' or perhaps from the South Slavic for 'Plain of Oaks'. The association made by 18th- and 19th-century scholars with the idea of the "three cities" (Τρίπολις, τρεις πόλεις "three cities": variously Callia, Dipoena and Nonacris, mentioned by Pausanias without geographical context, or Tegea, Mantineia and Pallantium, or Mouchli, Tegea and Mantineia or Nestani, Mouchli and Thana), were considered paretymologies by G.C. Miles. An Italian geographical atlas of 1687 notes the fort of Goriza e Mandi et Dorbogliza; a subsequent Italian geographical dictionary of 1827 attributes the name Dorbogliza to the ruins of Mantineia (Mandi) and states that it is located north of Tripolizza. The Ottoman Turks referred to the town and the district as Tripoliçe.

History Little is known about Drobolitza, but it is included in a list of abandoned Byzantine sites from 1467, corresponding with the years after Mehmed's conquest of this part of Greece. However, following the Ottoman conquest of Morea, it seems that the cultural and administrative centre of the Tegean plain was moved from Mouchli to Drobolitza. This was development occurring some years after the conquest, sometime after 1467. After 1540, the focus seems to have changed from the fortress itself, to the settlement below it called Tarabluca, that would be the next political centre of the plain. French archaeologist visited the ruins of Tarabluca in 1829, and could still observe the ruins of Drobolitza at this time.

In spring 1770 during a Greek uprising known as Orlov Revolt, the revolutionary armies were halted out of Tripolitsa. In retaliation for the Greek uprising, Albanian mercenaries of the Ottomans slaughtered 3,000 Greeks in a few hours upon entering the city. Total massacre and destruction of the city was avoided after intervention of Osman bey, leader of the Albanian mercenaries.

Before the Greek War of Independence, under the Ottoman name of "Tripoliçe", it was one of the Ottoman administrative centres in the Peloponnese (the Morea Eyalet, often called "pashalik of Tripolitsa") and had large Muslim and Jewish populations. Tripolis was one of the main targets of the Greek insurgents in the Greek War of Independence, who stormed it on 17 October 1821, following the bloody siege of Tripolitsa, and exterminated the Muslim and Jewish populations.

Ibrahim Pasha retook the city on June 22, 1825, after it had been abandoned by the Greeks. Before he evacuated the Peloponnese in early 1828, he destroyed the city and tore down its walls.

After the independent Greek state was established in 1830, the old Ottoman buildings of Tripolizza, such as the walls, were completely destroyed or demolished.

Tripoli was renamed and rebuilt and was developed as one of the main cities of the Kingdom of Greece, serving as the capital of the Arcadia district. During the 19th and the 20th centuries the city emerged to be the administrative, economic, commercial and transportation centre of central and south Peloponnese.

Geography The city of Tripoli is is located in the centre of the Peloponnese, at the western border of a large basin (a polje at about 650 m in altitude, a length of ca. 30 km and a width between 12,5 and 2,5 km). The city is today the capital of the regional unit Arcadia. At its west the city borders the thickly wooded mountain-area “Mainalo”. The Tripoli Basin has gradually been rainwater regulated (mainly after 1945) and turned into farmland. In the south-west floods, which appear in the basin occasionally after rainy winters, as in 2003, formed the temporary Lake Taka. This lake was regulated by a new pond, to retain water for irrigation.

Its main plazas are aligned with the main street and with a highway linking to Pyrgos and Patras. One of them is named Kennedy, the other is named Georgiou B' (George II). The southern part has its main street named Washington. The main section of the city is enclosed around the castle walls that were built during the Ottoman occupation of Greece. An industrial park has been built in the southwest.

Surrounding area In the large Tripoli Basin and in vast parts of the wider geological formations of the Arcadian Highland tectonics in the dominant carbonate rock "Tripoliza" of the Peloponnese developed a special topography: There are several plains, "intra mountainous basins", even "closed basins": Besides small basins, there are the Tripoli-Basin, the "Argon Pedion" (an almost separated side basin in the north-east of Tripoli), the Basin of Levidi and the Basin of Vlacherna Arcadia/Hotoussa/Kandila).

The peculiarity of all plains and basins in Arcadia is the coincidence with intensive karstification: Water seeps into the underground, rather than eroding and draining the topography by surface waterways. All drainage runs through ponors (in Greek: καταβόθρες) and subterranean waterways. There are 45 ponors in the above named basins. There are 7 ponors around Lake Taka. When winter rains are heavy, the ground is flooded or temporary lakes form, even today, as drainage through ponors is often slow which causes land cultivation delays.

Municipality The municipality of Tripoli was formed at the 2011 local government reform by merging these 8 former municipalities, that became municipal units: • Falanthos • Korythio • Levidi • Mantineia • Skiritida • Tegea • Tripoli • Valtetsi

The municipality has an area of 1,475.805 km2, the municipal unit 119.287 km².

Subdivisions The municipal unit of Tripoli is subdivided into these communities: • Agios Vasileios • Agios Konstantinos • Evandro • Makri • Merkovouni • Pallantio • Pelagos • Perthori • Skopi • Thanas • Tripoli.

Education Tripoli is the flagship campus of the University of the Peloponnese, founded in 2000.

UoP Tripoli is the location of the School of Economy, Management and Informatics, composed of the Department of Economics and the Department of Informatics and Telecommunications.

Transport Because it is at the centre of the Peloponnese, Tripolis is a transportation hub. Corinth is 75 km (47 miles) NE, Pyrgos 145 km (90 mi) E, Patras 144 km (89 mi) NW, Kalamata 65 km (40 mi) SW, and Sparti 60 km (37 mi) S.

Tripoli is mainly accessed from Athens and the rest of Greece through the Corinth-Tripoli-Kalamata motorway, known as the Moreas Motorway (A7). An alternative route is the GR-7 which used to be the main highway to Tripoli before the construction of the motorway. The city is also accessed by GR-74 and GR-76 from Pyrgos and by GR-39 from Sparta.

Tripoli is served by the metre gauge railway line from Corinth to Kalamata of the Hellenic Railways Organisation (OSE). The line was renovated and passenger services to Árgos and Corinth, which had been suspended for a few years, were reinstated in 2009. However, in December 2010 services ceased again due to the general suspension of railway services in the Peloponnese.

Military Tripoli is home to the two largest Armed Forces bootcamps in Greece, one operated by the Hellenic Army and one by the Hellenic Air Force: the 251st Army Training Battalion and the 124th Basic Training Wing.

Sport Tripoli hosts three sport clubs with presence in the higher national divisions in Greek football and basketball.