Elliniko and Argyroupoli

Elliniko was once called Loimiko, it seems after a quarantine station (λοιμοκαθαρτήριο), and until the Second World War it was also known as Chasani, after the tower of a man named Hasan. In the 1920s families from Sourmena (Sürmene) in Pontus settled the slopes above what became Vouliagmenis Avenue and named the district after their town. The plots of Kato Elliniko came with the duty to break the rock, wall the land and plant a garden, so they went to well-off settlers from Smyrna and Constantinople as well as Pontus, who called their quarter Kipoupoli (the garden city).

The airport opened in 1938, and the town gave up land to it more than once (in 1956, for instance, much of Kato Elliniko was pulled down for the airport and the American base, which the United States kept until 1993). The airport closed on 28 March 2001, when the new one at Spata opened, its north-western aprons became venues for the 2004 Olympics, and until 2017 the Olympic site also sheltered refugees, up to 5000 people.

Plans for the airfield were shelved in the financial crisis, and work on the Ellinikon began only in July 2020, with Lamda Development laying out a park of some 2 million m² (the developer's figure) and, around it, sites for homes, hotels, offices, shops, a casino and a marina. The Experience Park (some 75 000 m² of trees, a playground, a fountain and an outdoor gym) opened on 20 December 2021, and the Ellinikon Sports Park opened to the public on 20 July 2026.

The rest is a building site, and its dates are best read as announcements. At Lamda's general meeting on 23 June 2026 its chief executive, Odysseas Athanasiou, said the first residents would move in before Easter 2027 and that the builder of the Riviera Tower (200 m and 50 floors, by then at its full height) still thought a handover in the summer of 2027 possible. Lamda's half-year report in September counted 610 of the 750 homes released in Little Athens as sold or reserved by the end of August.

The project has its critics, nevertheless, since well-kept airport buildings of the 1930s were demolished for it and nearby communities had long said they would rather have a park.

The headland of Agios Kosmas is usually taken to be the ancient Cape Colias, where, according to Herodotus, the wrecks of the Persian fleet washed ashore after Salamis, and on it George Mylonas excavated an Early Bronze Age settlement and cemetery. The modern shore belongs to sport and boats. The national youth sports centre opened here in 1961 (the new Sports Park is its replacement), the Olympic sailing events of 2004 were held here, and the marina that followed is being rebuilt for yachts of up to 80 m.

Argyroupoli, the larger town (33 312 residents in 2021, against 16 715 in Elliniko), lies at the south-western foot of Hymettus, a Natura 2000 range some 16 km long. Refugees from Argyroupolis in Pontus (today Gümüşhane, meaning silver house, in north-eastern Turkey) founded it, thirty-nine families who settled between 1926 and 1928 on land at Trachones expropriated from the estate of the doctor Marinos Geroulanos, a place so cut off that they called it the exile of Adam. The community had 425 residents when it was recognised in 1949 and 4025 by 1957, and today its main shops line Kyprou Avenue, Geroulanou Avenue and part of Vouliagmenis, in a town known for its cafés and restaurants.

Sourmena, the northern quarter of Elliniko, keeps its Pontic customs with some care. On Thomas Sunday, a week after Easter, the Union of Pontians of Sourmena holds a procession from the church to the cemetery. There families spread white cloths over the graves and set out tsourekia, red eggs, meze and ouzo, since the day is meant for joy rather than mourning. The first school, which the residents built themselves, still stands and houses a Pontic museum.

Line 2 of the metro reached Argyroupoli and Elliniko on 26 July 2013, and from Elliniko, its southern end, it runs under or beside Vouliagmenis Avenue towards Syntagma and Omonia. An extension south to Glyfada was still being studied by Elliniko Metro (the state company that builds new lines) in September 2025. The X97 express bus runs from Elliniko station to the airport, and local lines leave Argyroupoli station for Kalamaki, Glyfada, Voula, Varkiza and Saronida.

Line 7 of the tram, between Piraeus and Voula, stops along the coast at Elliniko and Agios Kosmas. The fast roads to the centre are Vouliagmenis Avenue and Poseidonos Avenue by the sea, which Lamda is putting underground for about 1.15 km up to the Agios Kosmas marina, although the tunnel, begun in May 2022 and once expected in early 2026, has been reported since the summer of 2025 for 2028 (in part, Lamda's chief executive said then, because the tram tracks on the old road had to be moved first). At the June 2026 meeting he gave no date, saying only that Lamda's own part of the work was nearly finished and that the access ramps were running late.

The municipality had 50 027 residents at the 2021 census, slightly fewer than in 2011. Its climate is the hot, dry one of the southern coast: Elliniko, where the national weather service is based, averages 18.6 °C and about 367 mm of rain a year, and it recorded 43.0 °C on 3 August 2021.

Buyers will likely choose between the older streets, which grew from refugee plots and the building cooperatives of the 1950s, and the new flats and houses of the Ellinikon, many of them sold off plan. The rough edge is the building work, which will evidently last for years yet, since at the June meeting the opening of the large Ellinikon Mall was put at 2030. Two streams across the site (the Trachones and the Airport Stream, once the Evryalis) are also being reshaped for flood protection.