Mademochoria  - Halkidiki

The mademochoria take their name from the Turkish word for mine, and they are the mining villages which enjoyed great prosperity during the years of the Ottoman Empire, exploiting the lead and silver deposits of the region. The men of those villages had extracted silver for the sultan from the deposits in Mt Stratonikos. Many of them were fine workers in metal, as well as miners.

These villages enjoyed special privileges and a certain amount of autonomy; although there was a local Turkish governor, he gave the villagers great leeway to run their own affairs. The villages set up a sort of federation, administered by twelve vekilides or representatives of the mademochoria. The individual mining villages were as follows: Galatista, Vavdos, Stagira, Stanos, Varvara, Arnea, Novoselo, Stratoniki, Megali Panagia and Ierissos.