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Administrative Region : West Greece
Regional unit : Achaia

Rio (Greek: Ρίο, Río, formerly Ῥίον, Rhíon; Latin: Rhium) is a town and a former municipality in Achaea, West Greece, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Patras, of which it is a municipal unit.[1] The former municipality had a population of around 13,000.

Rio Antirio Bridge

Geography

The town center is about 7 km N of Patras by GR-8. Elevation is about 10 m downtown, and 20 to 50 m in its east. Many of the houses are lined up between the beach, the railway and the national road. A view of Aetoloacarnania (Acarnania), northwestern Peloponnese including Patras and southwestern Phokis, along with the Panachaicus mountains surrounded with a scenery, and mountains are surrounded in its east. The boundary with the community of Aktaio was by the highway east of the town centre.

The municipality included Kastellokampos in the south and Agios Georgios slightly south. The town center is inland near Somerset Street.

Hills and a mountain can be seen over the community's northeastern boundary.

History

The community has existed for around 3,000 years (range), and has fought a couple of battles in 425 BC, and during medieval times.

Infrastructure

Agriculture and farmland used to dominate the town of Rio until building rate increased. Gradually more houses were built, together with a hospital and a university, in the 1970s or the 1980s. Only half of the town is covered by farmlands today, and this percentage is shrinking.

The town is covered with sandy beaches in the west with a scenic local beach road lengthening for about 6 km. In the middle, a fortress, and a harbor located northwest of downtown. The harbor offers ferry service to Antirrion which, for the past 50 years, has enabled traffic to flow between the Peloponnese and Western Mainland Greece. The traffic through the ferries is quite heavy, including a lot of trucks. The ferries already been replaced by the Rio-Antirio Bridge. Not far from the port, a small oil refinery situated 800 m north and carries little production. Oil trucks are not allowed on the bridge and the ferry service is both regular and an economic alternative to the bridge.

Rio Beach includes Camping Rio Beach is its campground founded west of the centre. Its distances from Alissos is about 20 to 25 km.

The University of Patras is in its east and is bounded by a river in the south and southeast and a hospital is founded there, and a toll.

Farmlands dominate the east and the west and used to dominate the southeastern part. Pastures and groves are common in the area. White Muscats are grown in this area and in Patras and wineries are also one of the main production of the local agriculture.

Government

The mayors of the municipality were:

Vasileios Zervas (1998–2006)
Christos Liakopoulos (2006–2010)

Etymology

The name Rio derives from the Greek "ῥίον" (rhion), generally meaning "jutting part",[2] perhaps from "ῥίς" (rhis), "nose", but also "spur of land".[3] The earliest attested form of the word "ῥίον" (rhion) is the Mycenaean Greek ri-jo-no, from ri-jo, meaning "cape", written in Linear B syllabic script.[4]

Subdivisions

The municipal unit Rio is subdivided into the following communities (constituent villages in brackets):

Agios Vasileios
Aktaio
Ano Kastritsi
Arachovitika (Arachovitika, Kato Arachovitika)
Argyra
Drepano
Kato Kastritsi (Kato Kastritsi, Magoula)
Pititsa
Platani
Psathopyrgos (Psathopyrgos, Kato Rodini)
Rio
Sella

Historical population
Year Municipal district Municipality
1981 2,012 -
1991 3,496 10,280
2001 - 13,291

Rio, Achaia

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