Athens 1834-1960

When, in 1834, Athens became the capital of the young kingdom of Greece, it was just a small town full of ruins, ravaged by war and all but deserted by its inhabitants - its total population amounted to just 7,000 people. A little over a century later, in 1951, the Municipality of Athens had a population of 560,000, which then grew to 627,500 during the following decade. Athens was clearly developing into a large city with a constantly growing population. The formation and the population growth in the capital in the period leading up to the large wave of internal migration in the 1960s, is the main focus of our research and studies.

More specifically our research concerns

• The history of the population of the Municipality of Athens (i.e. population origins and demographic behaviours)
• The socio-professional composition of the capital’s population
• Issues of public health
• The acquisition of urban property and
  
• The social and geographical mobility and horizontal segregation. 

All of our studies are the result of extensive primary research, which include the meticulous indexing and processing of original archival material into electronic databases.