Nafplio

The name of the town changed several times over the centuries. The modern Greek name of the town is Nafplio (Ναύπλιο).[2] In modern English, the most frequently used forms are Nauplia and Navplion.[3]

In Classical Antiquity, it was known as Nauplia (Ναυπλία) in Attic Greek[4][5][6][7] and Naupliē (Ναυπλίη) in Ionian Greek.[4] In Latin, it was called Nauplia.[8]

During the Middle Ages, several variants were used in Byzantine Greek, including Náfplion (Ναύπλιον), Anáplion (Ἀνάπλιον), and Anáplia (Ἀνάπλια).[7]

During the Late Middle Ages and early modern period, under Venetian domination, the town was known in Italian as Napoli di Romania, after the medieval usage of "Romania" to refer to the lands of the Byzantine Empire, and to distinguish it from Napoli (Naples) in Italy.

Also during the early modern period, but this time under Ottoman rule, the Turkish name of the town was Mora Yenişehir, after Morea, a medieval name for the Peloponnese, and "yeni şehir", the Turkish term for "new city" (apparently a translation from the Greek Νεάπολη, Italian Napoli). The Ottomans also called it Anabolı.

In the 19th century and early 20th century, the town was called indiscriminately Náfplion (Ναύπλιον) and Nafplio (Ναύπλιο) in modern Greek. Both forms were used in official documents and travel guides. This explains why the old form Náfplion (sometimes transliterated to Navplion) still occasionally survives up to this day.

Panorama of modern Nafplion.

Nafplio is situated on the Argolic Gulf in the northeast Peloponnese. Most of the old town is on a peninsula jutting into the gulf; this peninsula forms a naturally protected bay that is enhanced by the addition of man-made moles. The city was originally almost isolated by marshes; landfill projects, primarily since the 1970s, have nearly doubled its land area.

Nafplio municipality

The municipality Nafplio was formed at the 2011 local government reform by the merger of the following 4 former municipalities, that became municipal units:[9]

• Asini
• Midea
• Nafplio
• Nea Tiryntha

The municipality has an area of 390.241 km², the municipal unit 33.619 km².[10]

Traditional houses. View from Acronauplia.

Statue of Theodoros Kolokotronis

Fortifications of Acronauplia

Acronauplia is the oldest part of the city though a modern hotel has been built on it. Until the thirteenth century, it was a town on its own. The arrival of the Venetians and the Franks transformed it into part of the town fortifications. Other fortifications of the city include the Palamidi and Bourtzi, which is located in the middle of the harbour.

Nafplio maintains its own distinct traditional architectural style with many colourful buildings around the old town, influenced by the Venetians, due of their domination between 1338–1540 and during the Kingdom of the Morea and to a much lower degree by the Ottomans. Furthermore the city also contains a great number of eclecticist and neoclassical buildings and even a smaller number of modernist buildings such as Hotel Amphitryon (designed in the 1950s by architect Kleon Krantonellis).[26] The city also contains the only example of Mycenaean Revival architecture,[27] the National Bank of Greece branch of Nafplio.

It is one of the few Greek cities to have been spared the widespread destruction of traditional architecture during the process of antiparochí, due to the efforts of the archaeologist Evangelia Protonotariou Deilaki, whose actions went against the prevailing trend of the post-war era.[28]

Around the city can be found several sculptures and statues. They are related mostly with the modern history of Nafplio, such as the statues of Ioannis Kapodistrias, Otto of Greece and Theodoros Kolokotronis.

• Gyalós
• Kourti
• Old town
• Psaromachalas
• Prónoia (planned by Stamatis Voulgaris)

Charilaos Trikoupis was born in Nafplio

• Nicolas "the Greek" (fl. 1519–1522), one of the 18 survivors of the expedition that completed the first circumnavigation of the world on the Victoria in 1519–1522
• Tellos Agras (1880–1907), fighter in the Greek Struggle for Macedonia
• Leonidas Drosis (d. 1882), sculptor
• Nina Bawden (1925–2012), writer (resident)
• Merkur Bua, 16th century Albanian Stratiot.
• Timoleon Filimon (1833-1898), politician
• Austen Kark (1926–2002), managing director of the BBC World Service (resident)
• Nikos Karouzos (1926–1990), poet
• Vangelis Kazan (1936–2008), actor
• Sotirios Sotiropoulos (1831–1898), lawyer, politician and former Prime Minister of Greece
• Angelos Terzakis (1907–1979), writer
• Charilaos Trikoupis (1832–1896), Prime Minister of Greece seven times from 1875 until 1895
• Panagiotis Tachtsidis (born 1991), football player currently playing in Saudi Professional League for AL Fay-ha FC
• Emmanouil Zymvrakakis (1861–1928), Greek general of World War I

• Pannafpliakos F.C., football

• 
  Byzantine church (12th century)
• 
  Monument for the Morea Expedition, Philellinon Square
• 
  View of Acronauplia
• 
  Clock tower in Acronauplia
• 
  View from Palamidi
• 
  The building of National Bank of Greece (example of Mycenaean Revival architecture)
• 
  Trion Navarchon (Three admirals) Square with the monument to Demetrius Ypsilantis
• 
  The church of Saint Nicholas
• 
  St. George Church
• 
  Othonos Street
• 
  St Spyridon church, where Ioannis Kapodistrias was murdered
• 
  Street of Nafplio
• 
  Trianon Mosque

• History of Greece
• Politics of Greece
• List of traditional Greek place names

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1854–1857). "Nauplia". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London: John Murray.

• Bailly, Anatole (1901), Abrégé du dictionnaire grec-français, Paris, France: Hachette.

• Entick, John. A Compendious Dictionary of the English and Latin Tongues. New edition carefully revised and augmented throughout by Rev. M.G. Sarjant. London, 1825. ()
• Ellingham, Mark; Dubin, Marc; Jansz, Natania; and Fisher, John (1995). Greece, the Rough Guide. Rough Guides. ISBN 1-85828-131-8.
• Gerola, Giuseppe (1930–31). "Le fortificazioni di Napoli di Romania," Annuario dell regia scuola archeologicca di Atene e delle missioni italiane in oriente 22-24. pp. 346–410.
• Gregory, Timothy E. (1983). Nauplion. Athens.
• Karouzos, Semnes (1979). To Nauplio. Athens.
• Kolokotrones, Theodoros (1969). Memoirs from the Greek War of Independence, 1821-1833. E. M. Edmunds, trans. Originally printed as Kolokotrones: The Klepht and the Warrior. Sixty Years of Peril and Daring. An Autobiography. London, 1892; reprint, Chicago.
• Lamprynides, Michael G. (1898). Ê Nauplia. Athens, reprint 1950.
• Latacz, Joachim (2004), Troy and Homer: Towards the Solution of an Old Mystery, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

• Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert (1889), An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon, Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.

• Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, revised and augmented by Sir Henry Stuart Jones, Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.

• Luttrell, Anthony (1966), "The Latins of Argos and Nauplia: 1311-1394", Papers of the British School at Rome, Vol. 34, pp. 34–55.

• McCulloch, J. R. (1866). "A Dictionary, Geographical, Statistical, and Historical of the Various Countries, Places, and Principal Natural Objects in the World". New edition carefully revised. Longmans, Green, and Co., London, UK. p. 457. ()
• Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (10th ed.), Springfield, Mass., US: Merriam-Webster, 1993.

• Schaefer, Wulf (1961). "Neue Untersuchungen über die Baugeschichte Nauplias im Mittelalter," Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts. Vol. 76, pp. 156–214.
• Smith, William, ed. (1854), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), London, UK: Walton and Maberly.

• Thomas, George Martin (1966). Diplomatarium Veneto-Levantinum. B. Franklin, New York, US. ()
• Wright, Diana Gilliland (1999). Bartolomeo Minio: Venetian administration in 15th-Century Nauplion. Doctoral dissertation. The Catholic University of America, Washington DC, US.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Nafplion.

• Municipality of Nafplio Official Website
• GTP - Nafplio municipality
• Historical images, poetry
• Nafplion City

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Nafplion.