Discover NorThern Islands Of The Aegean Sea : Population

Demographics at half-mast

The last official census of the Greek state took place throughout 2021, amidst great distrust of the population. The preliminary results published in 2022 show that the Greek demography continues to decline since the last census in 2011: the downward trend of recent decades continues. Today, the country thus counts 10.43 million residents, -3.5% compared to the previous decade. This trend is confirmed in the islands of North Aegean with a decline less pronounced than the national average in the administrative complex of the northeast (-2.6%) but well above the national average in the Sporades (-5.6%) and the Thracian islands of Thassos and Samothrace (-5.7%). In the islands of the North Aegean, the greater acceleration of population loss can be explained by the increased deaths of an elderly island population that is not being replaced either by the settlement of young Greek families or by foreign immigration.

This is a trend that has accelerated since the 2010s. Since the 1980s, greece has had one of the lowest fertility rates in europe: 1.30 children per woman on average for the past 40 years. The economic and financial crisis of 2009 to 2019 is largely responsible for the recent acceleration of the demographic decline. It has led to an exodus of young Greeks (about 500,000 people in ten years), especially to Germany, but also to a decline in the birth rate (there are now more deaths than births), while the population has aged (the median age was 25 in 1950, it is now 45). Thus, since 2015, the country has fallen below the previously stable population of 11 million. As no significant action is taken, the phenomenon is expected to worsen: projections give estimates of less than 10 million inhabitants in 2030 and less than 8 million in 2080.

Exodus and return

The rural exodus to Athens and large cities has profoundly affected the demographics of the North Aegean, although we have seen a certain slowing of the trend during the crisis, with more and more young people returning to the islands. The demographics of these islands is very strongly marked by the tourist seasons: many islanders spend the winter in large islands such as Lesbos or Athens and Thessaloniki and return from Easter to work in the heart of the summer season. Today, there are about 220,000 inhabitants in the whole of the North Aegean, of which about 80,000 on the island of Lesbos alone.

Emigration to foreign countries has also largely affected the islands of the North Aegean, especially those closest to the Turkish coast. Indeed, historical tragedies, such as the massacres of Chios and Psara (1822-24) pushed the surviving populations to leave the region, for fear of future catastrophes. In the particular case of Chios, the populations took the way of the commercial ports where Chiotes counters had been established (Odessa, Marseilles, Trieste, London...). Before the attachment to Greece, many islanders left their islands for the United States in order to escape the restrictions of the Ottoman domination, a trend that accelerated after the Great Catastrophe of 1922. The attachment that links the descendants of these emigrants to their islands of origin is very strong: they come to repopulate the North Aegean every summer.

A homogeneous population

Officially, the country's population is 98% Greek and Orthodox. However, Greece at the beginning of the ^20th century did not display this same homogeneity: it was a mosaic of peoples, inherited from the mixing of populations over the centuries and from the long Ottoman period. Thus Greeks, Turks, Slavs, Albanians, Jews, Romanians cohabited on the territory. But, from 1830 to 1977, the Greek state carried out a policy of forced Hellenization which almost made the non-Greek minorities disappear, either by expelling them or by assimilating them. Thus, after the annexation of the North Aegean islands in 1913, the non-Hellenic and non-Orthodox components were assimilated or forced into exile. During the Great Catastrophe of 1922, one million Greeks from Asia Minor were in turn expelled from Turkey, and the majority of them came to settle on the territory of present-day Greece, notably in the islands of the North Aegean, where they took refuge before migrating further from these coasts, for greater safety. Another tragedy: during the Nazi occupation, the Jewish population of Greece was largely exterminated. In the 1960s, new small Greek communities arrived, driven out of Istanbul or Alexandria. The result of these successive uprootings and tragedies has made the population of the country and the islands homogeneous.

Minorities

The only ethnic minority officially recognized by the Greek state is that of the "Turks", a vague denomination which includes all the Muslim citizens of Western Thrace, not necessarily Turkish, who benefit from a special status (bilingual education in public schools, application of Islamic law in certain cases), under the Treaty of Lausanne (1923). About 150,000 so-called "Turkish" people live around the town of Xanthi, which you will pass through if you combine a stay in Thassos and Samothrace.

Today, the main minority of the country and the islands of the North Aegean are the Albanian populations. They are estimated to be about one million in Greece, or about 10% of the population. Most of them settled in the 1990s, after the two shocks that this neighbouring country experienced: the fall of the communist regime in Tirana (1991) and the "pyramid crisis" (1997). Their arrival was massive and for a long time provoked a strong anti-Albanian feeling among the local population. Today, things are more peaceful: Albanian immigrants have participated in the economic development of the country and have allowed the repopulation of many villages on the islands that were in perdition due to the rural exodus and emigration. They also took over the businesses and taverns where they were previously employed, which limited the number of closures. Nowadays, it is difficult to differentiate between Albanians and Greeks, so much has assimilation taken place in the local population. After two large waves of regularizations (in 2003 and 2010), in 2015 the state finally granted Greek citizenship to Albanian children born and living in Greece. A measure that also helps to fight against demographic decline, especially on the islands in rapid demographic loss.

Immigration and refugees

In the North Aegean islands that still live from fishing (like Psara, Fourni, Samothrace...), you will notice that most of the fishing boats have foreign crews. They are mostly Egyptians. In 2010, Cairo and Athens signed an agreement on the development of fishing and aquaculture in Greece. In this context, several thousand Egyptian fishermen are staying in Greece on a seasonal or permanent basis.

Immigration in the North Aegean, especially in the islands closest to the Turkish coast, has experienced a dark period with the refugee crisis that took a dramatic turn during 2015. In 8 months, more than 230,000 migrants rally the islands of the region. Each island receives its share of refugees, mainly from the Middle East and fleeing the war to reach northern Europe. Lesbos, Samos and Chios receive the largest number of asylum seekers, and are quickly overwhelmed by the scale of the humanitarian crisis. One of the major issues in the region concerns these inhabitants waiting for a future: today, it is still very difficult to obtain proper papers, and the conservative right wing of Mitsotakis in power since 2019 is clearly committed to a tougher policy against refugees. With the 2023 elections still uncertain, it is difficult to predict whether the current trend will be confirmed.