Greece Gazetteers

See Catsakis, Lica. [[Media:Lica Catsakis 6 Locating Places in Greece.pdf|"Chapter 6 LOCATING PLACES IN GREECE", Family Research in Greece']]. Phoenix, Arizona: 2010.

What is a gazetteer?
A gazetteer is a dictionary of place names. Gazetteers describe towns and villages, parishes and counties, rivers and mountains, sizes of population, and other geographical features. They usually include only the names of places that existed at the time the gazetteer was published. The place names are generally listed in alphabetical order, as in a dictionary.

Gazetteers may provide additional information about towns, such as schools, districts, local courts with their locations and hierarchy, tax offices, government cashier’s offices, diocese, place name changes since the last gazetteer, and so on. You can use a gazetteer to locate the places where your family lived and to determine the civil and church jurisdictions over those places. For example, the town of Marmara is in the municipality Arhilohou, district Parou, county Kykladon, and diocese Paronaxias.

There may be many places in Greece with the same or similar names. You will need to use a gazetteer to identify the specific town where your ancestor lived, the county it was in, and the jurisdictions where records were kept. Gazetteers are also helpful for determining county jurisdictions as used in the FamilySearch Catalog.

Catsakis Gazetteer Online
For genealogical purposes, the best English language gazetteer lists all the counties (Nomos), districts (Eparhia), diocese (Mitropolis), and most of the municipalities (Dimos/Koinotis) of Greece:
 * Catsakis, Lica H. (Bywater). Greek Gazetteer. Volume 1. Salt Lake City, Utah, USA: Lica H. Catsakis (Bywater), 1997. (FHL book 949.5 E5c v. 1). This book is primarily based on the 1974 gazetteer listed under “Finding Place Names in the FamilySearch Catalog” below.
 * Catsakis, Lica H. (Bywater). Greek Gazetteer. Volume 2. Salt Lake City, Utah, USA: Lica H. Catsakis (Bywater), 2000. (FHL book 949.5 E5c v. 2).

Online Version

 * [[Media:Greek Gazetteer Vol. 1 Part 1, by Lica Catsakis.pdf|Volume 1, Part I]] --Maps of Greece, administrative division of Greece, municipalities of Greece by nomos and eparhia


 * [[Media:Greek_Gazetteer_Vol._2,_Part_Ia_and_Ib,_by_Lica_Catsakis.pdf|Volume 2, Part 1a and 2a]]
 * Part 1a: Towns and Villages of Greece (Greek to English)
 * Part Ib: Towns and Villages of Greece (English to Greek)
 * [[Media:Greek Gazetteer Vol. 2 Part II, by Lica Catsakis.pdf|Volume 2, Part II]]--Towns and villages of Greece with the municipalities and districts to which they belong
 * [[Media:Greek Gazetteer Vol. 2, Part III, by Lica Catsakis.pdf|Volume 2, Part III]]--All municipalities of Greece with the districts, counties, and dioceses to which they belong (According to the administrative division of Greece before January 1999)
 * [[Media:Greek Gazetteer Vol. 2, Part IV, by Lica Catsakis .pdf|Volume 2, Part IV]]--Changes of municipalities of Greece effective January 1999.

Converting Old Town Names to New Town Names
Why This List Is Needed When we only know the old name of the town where our ancestors were born or lived, we need to find out the new name of the town. This is where the old records are found today. Greece has been under foreign occupation for more than 400 years. The conquerors of Greece used foreign words/names to name Greek towns. After the Independence of Greece, residents of most towns decided to give Greek names to their towns. Most changes of town names took place in the 1920’s, but changes were made since the 1830’s, and changes of town names continue to take place.

Other Gazetteers

 * Greece: Official Standard Names Approved by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. Washington DC, USA: U.S. Printing Office, 1960. (FHL book 949.5 E5u; film 0873795, item 1; fiche 6053510) This gazetteer lists alphabetically the name of all the localities and geographic features in Greece, transliterated to the English alphabet. Nonstandard names and names that have been changed are followed by a “see” reference to the standard spelling. This book does not list the county or district a particular location belongs to, but it does give geographic coordinates and a five-digit code that indicates the region where it is located.
 * Catsakis (Bywater), Lica and Daniel Schlyter. Greek Genealogical Research. Salt Lake City: Greek Association of Family History and Tradition (SIPEO), 1993. (FHL book 949.5 D27b); fiche 6053540).
 * Lexikon ton Dimon, Koinotiton kai Oikismon tis Ellados [Gazetteer of cities, towns and localities of Greece]. Athinai: Ethniki Statistiki Ypiresia tis Ellados, 1963.
 * Neon Epitomon Egkyklopaidikon Lexikon: Mikri egkyklopaideia [New encyclopedic dictionary]. Athinai: N. Nikas & Sia, 1972.
 * Stefanou, Grigorios. Plires Geografikon Lexikon tis Ellados [Complete geographical dictionary of Greece]. Athinai: s.n., 1937.

Changes in Place Names
Place names have changed over time. Some place names based on other languages such as Turkish have been changed to Greek names. Also, some older forms of town names have been modernized as recently as the 1980s. For example, the city of Athens was spelled Athinai formerly and is now spelled Athina. In early records the place names may be written differently from today. For some research purposes, such as correspondence, it is useful to learn modern jurisdictions for the area where your ancestors lived. This may also be helpful when finding the ancestral town on modern maps.

Some gazetteers list place names in the older form. The following gazetteer includes cross references for towns that have had name changes, and it lists localities in Greece as they were in 1937:


 * Stefanou, Grigorios; Plires Geografikon Lexikon tis Ellados - Complete Gazetteer of Greece. Athens, Greece: Vivliopoleion Oikou Mich. Saliverou, 1937. (FHL film 1181601, item 4)

Information given in this gazetteer includes a description, the district, the county, and other data, including population statistics as of about 1935.

Words and abbreviations that you will generally find in the above gazetteers include the following:



Finding Place Names in the FamilySearch Catalog
Place names in the FamilySearch Catalog are listed under the modern names and current counties. Use the "Place" search found in the FamilySearch Catalog at www.FamilySearch.org. The computer will find places with that name.

Because of the many changes in place names, the Family History Library uses one gazetteer as the standard guide for listing places in the FamilySearch Catalog. Regardless of the names a place may have had at various times, all Greek places are listed in the FamilySearch Catalog by the name that appears in:

To use this gazetteer, start with part II, which lists all localities (villages, towns, and cities) in alphabetical order. After each locality, the name of the municipality it belongs to will be listed followed by the district (eparhia), county (nomos), the altitude, and the population as of 1971. You can look up further information about the locality by looking at the municipality or community in part I.
 * Lexikon tōn Dēmōn, Koinotētōn kai Oikismōn tēs Hellados - Dictionary of Municipalities, Communities and Settlements of Greece. Athens, Greece: Ethniki Statistiki Ypiresia tis Ellados, 1974. (FHL book 949.5 E5e 1974; film 1184078, item 3) An introduction in English is found in the front of the Family History Library’s copy of this book. This gazetteer is available online when using a computer at a Family History Center: Click here.

The sources mentioned in this section are listed in the FamilySearch Catalog under:

GREECE - GAZETTEERS

Websites

 * http://www.fallingrain.com/world/GR/
 * http://www.getty.edu/research/conducting_research/vocabularies/tgn/