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THE Megalopolis is her city Of Arcadia. It is built on the homonymous plateau at an altitude of 430 meters. Its population is 5,779 inhabitants according to the 2011 census, including Orestion. There are large reserves of lignite in the area, the largest in Greece after Ptolemaida.
Generally
History
Megalopolis was built at the instigation of Epameinondas in 370 BC, in order to be a center for all the Arcadians and a rival power pole in neighboring Sparta. To inhabit the city, inhabitants from 40 Arcadian villages moved and several helots that had escaped, in order to ensure that this city would never be friendly to Sparta. After 337 BC. the city sided with the Macedonians. In 331 BC. was unsuccessfully besieged by the Spartans and their allies. There, at the same time, the Spartans and their allies clashed with the Macedonians and their own allies, who had arrived to help Megalopolis. The Macedonians managed to defeat, thus extinguishing all hope of the Spartans for the restoration of their hegemony. The king of Sparta, Agis III, was killed in the battle. The Macedonians were ruled by Antipater. In 223 BC. the Spartan king Kleomenis III captured it and burned it, but its inhabitants were saved following Philopimenas in Messinia. In 208 BC, Philopimen as general of the Achaean Confederation rebuilt it. Later, the city was permanently destroyed.
During the Turkish occupation it was inhabited by Turks and it was called Sinano, which was also its Byzantine name. Its current name was given after the formation of the Greek state, by royal decree of 1836. From 1834 it was the seat of the municipality and the province of Megalopolis. In the 1960s, PPC began mining lignite in the area and built the large thermal power plants that operate to this day.
