Kavala is a city in northern Greece, the principal seaport of eastern Macedonia and the capital of Kavala regional unit.
It is situated on the Bay of Kavala, across from the island of Thassos and on the Egnatia motorway, a one-and-a-half-hour drive to Thessaloniki (160km west) and a forty-minute drive to Drama (37km north) and Xanthi (56km east). It is also about 15km west of Alexandroupoli.
Kavala is an important economic centre of Northern Greece, a center of commerce, tourism, fishing and oil-related activities and formerly a thriving trade in tobacco.
Historically the city is also known by two different names. In antiquity the name of the city was Neapolis ('new city'). During the Middle Ages was renamed to Christo(u)polis ('city of Christ').
The city was founded in the late 7th century BC by settlers from Thassos. It was one of several Thassian colonies along the coastline, all founded in order to take advantage of rich gold and silver mines, especially those located in the nearby Pangaion mountain (which were eventually exploited by Phillip II of Macedonia).
The municipality of Kavala was formed at the 2011 local government reform by the merger of the two former municipalities, which became municipal units.
Traditionally the primary occupation of the population of Kavala was fishing. The fishermen of the town were well known all over northern Greece.
After the country's industrialization, Kavala also became a center of the tobacco industry in northern Greece. The building of the Municipal Tobacco Warehouse (1910) still stands today.
Oil deposits were found outside the city in the 1970s and are currently being exploited by two oil rigs (Prinos and Epsilon).
Kavala has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate that borders on both a semi-arid climate in the city's airport area and a humid subtropical climate in the city center with annual average precipitation of 466.2mm falling in the airport of Chrysoupoli. Snowfalls are sporadic, but happen more or less every year. The humidity is always moderate to high.
The absolute maximum temperature ever recorded was 38.0°C, while the absolute minimum ever recorded was −8.0°C.
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