About Paros

Paros is a 196-square-kilometre island in the central Cyclades, roughly 8 kilometres west of Naxos, with a municipal population of 14,520 at the 2021 census. Its pale, rounded hills are built largely of marble, the same translucent stone that ancient sculptors such as Praxiteles and Scopas once quarried here, and that made Paros one of the wealthiest members of the Delian League, paying the highest annual tribute of any island in the alliance, some 30 talents a year.

History

Settled early as an Ionian colony of Athens, Paros grew prosperous enough to found its own colonies on Thasos and at Parium on the Sea of Marmara, and to produce figures such as the poet Archilochus. During the Persian Wars the island sided with Persia and sent a warship to Marathon in 490 BC, a choice that provoked an Athenian siege soon after. Centuries later, following the Fourth Crusade of 1204, Paros fell under the Venetian-ruled Duchy of the Archipelago, and Ottoman conquest followed in 1537. Ottoman rule over the island ended in 1832, when Greek independence was formally recognized by treaty.

The island's harbour towns, Parikia and Naoussa, grew from fishing ports into its main gateways today, each with its own working fishing fleet still tied up alongside the tourist boats. Parikia's Panagia Ekatontapiliani, a church tradition credits to Saint Helen, mother of Constantine the Great, remains the island's most important religious landmark, while the inland village of Lefkes preserves an older, unfortified settlement pattern built away from the coast to avoid pirate raids.

Economy and Coastline

Marble quarries above Parikia still operate on a small scale today, supplying stone for archaeological restoration work rather than export, a quiet reminder of the trade that first put this otherwise unassuming island on the ancient world's map. Between Parikia and Naoussa runs a coastline of sandy bays, pebble coves and small rocky headlands that suits slow exploration by boat far better than by road, which is why so many visitors explore this coast by private gulet charter, tracing a shoreline that windsurfers also favor for the steady channel winds blowing between Paros and Naxos.