Country Greece Regional unit Boeotia Postal code 322 00, 320 09 Elevation 214 m Local time Sunday 12:36 PM | Administrative region Central Greece Time zone EET (UTC+2) Vehicle registration ΒΙ Area 122.5 km² Area code 22620 | |
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Weather 21°C, Wind W at 14 km/h, 40% Humidity | ||
Tanagra (Greek: Τανάγρα) is a town and a municipality north of Athens in Boeotia, Greece. The seat of the municipality is the town Schimatari. It is not far from Thebes, and it was noted in antiquity for the figurines named after it. The Tanagra figurines were a mass-produced, mold-cast and fired type of Greek terracotta figurines produced from the later fourth century BCE, primarily in Tanagra.
Contents
Map of Tanagra, Greece
Government
The municipality Tanagra was formed at the 2011 local government reform by the merger of the following 4 former municipalities, that became municipal units:
Ancient
Pausanias mentions in Tanagra's location the ancient city of Graea, eponymous of the Graikoi, a Boeotian tribe whose name gave rise to the Latin Graecus "Greek". Homer, while reciting the Boeotian forces in the Iliad 's Catalogue of Ships, provides the first known reference to the Boeotian city of Graea.
Tanagra's alternative name was Poimandria, after its founder Poimandros, who took part in the Trojan campaign. It was the site of two Battles of Tanagra, in 457 BC and 426 BC. The Boeotian League under Tanagra led forth "the Boeotians" against the Athenian invaders at Oenophyta, 62 days after the battle of Tanagra (See Battle of Oenophyta)
Modern
In the early 2000s, a military plane which was on a training flight crashed on the runway during bad weather. There were no survivors.
On Sunday 18 September 2005, the Archangelos air show, the largest ever organized in Greece, took place in Tanagra. It attracted a crowd of more than 200,000.
Geography
The municipality has an area of 461.023 km2, the municipal unit 122.527 km2, the community 27.814 km2. Tanagra is located SE of Thiva and Arma, SW of Schimatari and NW of Agios Thomas. Farmlands surround the rest of Tanagra, and the Asopus River along with the Parnitha mountains to the south.
Economy
Since 1956, the 114th Combat Wing of the Hellenic Air Force has been based at Tanagra Air Force Base. The base is one of Greece's largest military bases. Its runway is about 3 km in length.
Transport
Tanagra can be accessed by GR-1 in the north and by a provincial road linking Thiva (Thebes) in the west.
Tanagra is served by two interchanges, a partial southbound exit, a northbound entrance to the northwest and an almost-full to the east, serving access to highways 44 and 77 to the island of Euboea. Its service road lies to the south and is linked with the southeast bypass and to the military base.