Kilkis (regional Unit) - History

History

The area of the modern regional unit was part of the Kingdom of Macedonia from the 8th century BC until the Third Macedonian War (171 BC - 168 BC), when it became a part of the Roman Empire. At the division of the Roman Empire in 395 AD, the area joined the eastern part, later known as the Byzantine Empire. Between the 7th century and the 11th century, it changed hands between the Byzantine Empire and the Bulgarian Empire repeatedly. In the 13th and 14th century Western Europeans and Serbs briefly ruled the area. The Ottoman Empire conquered the area in 1371, and ruled it until the First Balkan War of 1912. In the Second Balkan War of 1913, the Greek army captured the area, which became part of Greece. It absorbed many of the Greeks from Northern Macedonia (now the Rep. of Macedonia), especially from Gevgeli, Vogdantsa, Polyane and Stromnitsa. In the aftermath of the Balkan Wars, World War I and the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922) most of its Turkish and Bulgarian population emigrated, and many Greeks from Bulgaria and Turkey settled in the area, as prescribed by the Treaty of Lausanne.

Until 1939, when created into a separate prefecture, the area was part of the Thessaloniki Prefecture. At the 2011 Kallikratis reform, the Kilkis Prefecture became a regional unit.