Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1871.djvu/327

 POPULATION.

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The statement shows that nearly one-half of the population of Greece is agricultural. In the Ionian Islands at the census of 1861 there were —

51,342 agriculturists ; 8,365 industrial population ; 7,282 commercial „

The population of the kingdom, numbering in 1861, without the Ionian Islands, 1,096,810, was divided into 248,949 families, or 4*62 individuals per family, inhabiting 225,716 buildings, or 4 - 86 per building. This population was distributed into 280 adminis- trative communes, seven of which numbered above 10,000 inhabi- tants; 216 from 2,000 to 10,000; and 57 below 2,000. The principal towns are Athens, with a population of about 45,000 ; Syra, about 20,000 ; and Patras, 25,000.

At the liberation of the country, there were only nine towns which had partly escaped the total devastation of the rest ; the principal of them being Lamia, Vonitza, Nauplia, and Chalkis. All the other towns and villages were in ruins, so that the first neces- sity of the inhabitants of the new State was to get housed. Since that time ten new cities have been founded, and twenty-three old towns, including Athens, Thebes, and Argos, have been rebuilt, besides many villages.

The nationality of the inhabitants of the kingdom is very mixed. The Albanian race occupies a considerable portion of the soil of ancient Greece, both within, as well as without, the frontiers of the new kingdom. With the exception of the two towns of Athens and Megara, it monopolises the whole of Attica and Messenia, and is in possession of the greater part of Bceotia, and a small part of Laconia. The south of Eubcea, the north of Achaia, part of Elis, and the whole of Salamis, are also peopled by Albanians. In the Peloponnesus the Albanian element occupies the whole of Corinth and Argolis, the north of Arcadia, the east of Achaia ; and stretching into Laconia, down the slopes of Taygetus towards the plain of Helos, it crosses the Eurotas, and holds possession of a large district

j round Monemvasia. However, in the kingdom its numerical strength, amounting to about 250,000 souls, is less notable than its

j social and industrial activity. The Albanian race furnishes to the Greek soil the greatest number of cultivators, and to the maritime

' population of Greece its most enterprising element.

Only one-seventh of the area of Greece is under cultivation ; the rest, though in greater part good for agricultural purposes, lies

i waste. The whole superficies of Greece has been estimated at

5 45,699,248 stremmas, or about 15 millions of acres. Of these 45,699,248 stremmas, which comprise in extent the whole soil of the kingdom, with the exception of the Ionian Islands, 11,748,000

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