CHALCIDICE

Modern Greek Khalkidhik, peninsula, northern Greece, and a noms (department) terminating in (eastwest) the three fingerlike promontories of Kassndra, Sithona, and yion ros (Mt. Athos). The promontories were once islands, and their isthmuses consequently are composed of loose sediments through which the Kassndra Canal was cut (1937). In antiquity, a canal was dug through the isthmus of yion ros by the Persian king Xerxes I (483481 BC). The steep sides of the northwestsoutheast-trending promontories are the result of recent geological rifting and uplift, and the area is subject to severe earthquakes. The axis of the main Chalcidice Peninsula is composed of the granitic mass of the Kholomn Massif. Sithona also is composed of ancient rocks; but yion ros, famous for the Byzantine monasteries of Mt. Athos, terminates in the great marble headland of Mt. thos. The most accessible and fertile parts of the noms are the low plateaus of the Kassndra promontory and the west coast around the town of Na Moudhani. Most of the rest is remote, wooded mountain country, with some mining villages. It is very popular with foreign tourists and several large hotels and holiday compounds were built there in the 1970s. Pop. (1981) 79,036.