Chameria

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Chameria (Albanian: Çamëria, often rendered in Greek as Τσαμουριά Tsamouriá) is the Albanian name for the coastal region of Epirus in southern Albania and northwestern Greece. Most of what the Albanians call Çamëria is part of the Greek prefecture (nomos) of Thesprotia.

Although Chameria is often used to refer to a wider historical region roughly equivalent to the whole of Epirus, in the last century it has usually denoted the area around Igoumenitsa and Paramythia, i.e. Thesprotia Prefecture, along with the Parga area of Preveza Prefecture and the Butrint area (the southern Sarandë District) in Albania.

Chameria (except for Butrint and seven neighboring villages), along with the rest of southern Epirus, was awarded to Greece by the 1913 Conference of Ambassadors which delineated the border between Greece and Albania. Due to the disruption caused by World War I, Greece did not actually take control until 1920 following the Paris Peace Conference. The decision was strongly disputed by the new Albanian state and many of region's ethnic Albanian inhabitants, who agitated for the annexation of Greek Chameria to Albania. A similar situation arose in neighbouring Northern Epirus - the decision of the international community to award the region to Albania was strongly opposed by Greece and the Greeks residing there.

The region was occupied by Italian-ruled Albania from 1941-1944 but was not annexed due to German opposition. Although an Albanian high commissioner, Xhemil Dino, was appointed by the Italians, Chameria remained under the control of the Axis military command in Athens. The region was restored to Greece following the German withdrawal at the end of 1944 but became a central battleground in the Greek Civil War. Since then, some Albanian nationalists have continued to call for Chameria to become part of a Greater Albania.

Chameria was, and the part in Albania still is, home of the Cham Albanians as well as Greeks and other ethnic groups.

For the history of the wider region of Epirus including Chameria, see Epirus (region).

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[edit] References and further reading

Albania at War, 1939-45, Bernd I. Fischer, p. 85. C. Hurst & Co, 1999
Historical Atlas of Central Europe, 2nd. ed. Paul Robert Magocsi. Seattle: U. of Washington Press, 2002.
Collective Memory, National Identity, and Ethnic Conflict: Greece, Bulgaria, and the Macedonian Question, Victor Roudometof
Unrepresented Nations And Peoples Organization Yearbook: 1995, ed. M. K. Simmons, pp. 49-50. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1996