Pikermi ( el, Πικέρμι) is a suburb of Athens and a former

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...

East Attica East Attica ( el, Ανατολική Αττική) is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Attica. The regional unit covers the eastern part of the urban agglomeration of Athens, and also the rural area to its east. Adm ...

regional unit,

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality

Rafina-Pikermi Rafina-Pikermi ( el, Ραφήνα-Πικέρμι) is a municipality in the East Attica regional unit, Attica, Greece. The seat of the municipality is the town Rafina. The municipality has an area of 40.501 km2. Municipality The municipality ...

, of which it is a municipal unit. The municipal unit has an area of 21.522 km².

Geography

Pikermi is situated at the northern edge of the

Mesogaia The Mesogeia or Mesogaia ( el, τα Μεσόγεια, η Μεσόγαια/Μεσογαία, "Midlands") is a geographical region of Attica in Greece. History The term designates since antiquity the inland portion of the Attic peninsula. The term a ...

plain, south of the

Penteliko Mountain Mount Pentelicus or Pentelikon (, or ) is a mountain in Attica, Greece, situated northeast of Athens and southwest of Marathon. Its highest point is the peak ''Pyrgari'', with an elevation of 1,109 m. The mountain is covered in large part wi ...

. It is 5 km east of

Pallini Pallini ( el, Παλλήνη) is a suburban town in Greater Athens Area and a municipality in East Attica, Greece. The seat of the municipality is the town Gerakas. It is the seat of administration of the East Attica regional unit. Geography ...

, 6 km west of

Rafina Rafina ( el, Ραφήνα) is a suburban port town located on the eastern coast of Attica in Greece. It has a population of 13,091 inhabitants (2011 census). Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Rafina-Pikermi, of ...

and 19 km east of

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

city centre.

Greek National Road 54 Greek National Road 54 (EO54) is a National Road in Greater Athens and Athens metropolitan area in Attica, Greece. Route According to the Government Gazette in 1963, the EO54 runs from central Athens to Rafina, via Stavros (near Gerakas). The ...

(Athens - Rafina) passes through Pikermi. The municipal unit Pikermi consists of the settlements Pikermi,

Drafi Drafi ( el, Ντράφι) is a residential settlement located in a semi-mountainous slopped region in the municipal unit of Pikermi, in the municipality Rafina–Pikermi, East Attica, Greece. It is situated east of Athens city center, on the slope ...

and Dioni.

Paleontology

Pikermi features a paleontological site which has more than forty mammal species from the late

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recen ...

(8 million years ago). What is special about Pikermi is that it is one of the first Miocene fossil localities to be discovered. It was discovered in 1839 by Bavarian soldiers of king

Otto Otto is a masculine German given name and a surname. It originates as an Old High German short form (variants ''Audo'', ''Odo'', ''Udo'') of Germanic names beginning in ''aud-'', an element meaning "wealth, prosperity". The name is recorded fro ...

. Since it was one of the first localities, many of the

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

named there are

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

. The locality itself is used as the archetypal example of a 'Pikermian' chronofauna that existed from Afghanistan to the Balkans during the

Late Miocene The Late Miocene (also known as Upper Miocene) is a sub-epoch of the Miocene epoch (geology), Epoch made up of two faunal stage, stages. The Tortonian and Messinian stages comprise the Late Miocene sub-epoch, which lasted from 11.63 Ma (million ye ...

. Similar

fossils A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved in ...

are found on

Samos Island Samos (, also ; el, Σάμος ) is a Greek island in the eastern Aegean Sea, south of Chios, north of Patmos and the Dodecanese, and off the coast of western Turkey, from which it is separated by the -wide Mycale Strait. It is also a separate r ...

in Greece and

Shanxi Shanxi (; ; formerly romanised as Shansi) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the North China region. The capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-lev ...

China.

Historical population

References

External links

*
GTP Travel Pages (Community)
{{Rafina-Pikermi div Populated places in East Attica