Thessaly

Thessaly ( ; ancient Thessalian: , ) is a traditional geographic and modern administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thessaly was known as Aeolia, and appears thus in Homer's Odyssey. Thessaly became part of the modern Greek state in 1881, after four and a half centuries of Ottoman rule. Since 1987 it has formed one of the country's 13 regions and is further (since the Kallikratis reform of 2011) sub-divided into five regional units and 25 municipalities. The capital of the region is Larissa. Thessaly lies in northern Greece and borders the regions of Macedonia to the north, Epirus to the west, Central Greece to the south, and the Aegean Sea to the east. The Thessaly region also includes the Sporades islands. Name and etymology Thessaly is named after the Thessaloi, an ancient Greek tribe. The meaning of the name of this tribe is unknown, and many theories have been made about its etymology. According to the Dutch linguist Robert S. P. Beekes, the name predates Greek presence in the region and could come from the Proto-Greek form reconstructed as *Kʷʰeťťal-. The Greek linguist Georgios Babiniotis also assigns the origin of the name of the Thessalians to pre-Greek times, although he does not try to explain its etymology. In Aromanian it is referred to as . Mythology In Homer's epic, the Odyssey, the hero Odysseus visited the kingdom of Aeolus, which was the old name for Thessaly.