Acharnes is a suburb

Suburb

The word suburb mostly refers to a residential area, either existing as part of a city or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city . Some suburbs have a degree of administrative autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods...

 of Athens

Athens

Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

, Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

. It is the most populous municipality

Communities and Municipalities of Greece

For the new municipalities of Greece see the Kallikratis ProgrammeThe municipalities and communities of Greece are one of several levels of government within the organizational structure of that country. Thirteen regions called peripheries form the largest unit of government beneath the State. ...

 in East Attica

East Attica

East Attica is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Attica. The capital of the regional unit is the town of Pallini. The regional unit covers the eastern part of the agglomeration of Athens, and also the rural area to its east....

. Much of the area north of the area are the forested Parnitha

Parnitha

Mount Parnitha is a densely forested mountain range north of Athens, the highest on the peninsula of Attica, with an elevation of 1,413 m and a summit known as Karavola...

 ranges and the parkland. The municipality is north of the Greater Ring of Athens. It is located about 10 km due north of Athens.

In ancient times when it was the deme

Deme

In Ancient Greece, a deme or demos was a subdivision of Attica, the region of Greece surrounding Athens. Demes as simple subdivisions of land in the countryside seem to have existed in the 6th century BC and earlier, but did not acquire particular significance until the reforms of Cleisthenes in...

Acharnae

Acharnae

Acharnae was the largest deme of ancient Attica; it was located in the northwest part of the Attic plain, south of Mt. Parnes in the general vicinity of the modern suburbs of Acharnes and Ano Liosia, about due north of Athens. The Acharnians chiefly grew cereals, grapes, and olives, although...

. Aristophanes

Aristophanes

Aristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete...

 in his play The Acharnians

The Acharnians

The Acharnians is the third play - and the earliest of the eleven surviving plays - by the great Athenian playwright Aristophanes. It was produced in 425 BCE on behalf of the young dramatist by an associate, Callistratus, and it won first place at the Lenaia festival...

mockingly claims that it's inhabitants were charcoal burners, while Pindar

Pindar

Pindar , was an Ancient Greek lyric poet. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian described him as "by far the greatest of the nine lyric poets, in virtue of his inspired magnificence, the beauty of his thoughts and figures, the rich...

 claims they were notably brave.

Municipality

The municipality Acharnes was formed at the 2011 local government reform by the merger of the following 2 former municipalities, that became municipal units:

• Acharnes
• Thrakomakedones

Thrakomakedones was formerly an independent enclave within Acharnes. Varympompi

Varympompi

Varympompi or Varibobi is a suburban community, part of the municipality of Acharnes, East Attica, Greece. It is located about 20 km N of Athens via the nearest interchange with GR-1/E75. Varympompi has 3 exits, at the 17th km, the 21st km and at around the 25th km to the north...

 is a quarter of Acharnes.

Acharnes has kindergartens,elementary schools, secondary schools, high schools, a post office, banks, and museums such as an Archaeological and a Folk Art Museum

Folk Art Museum of Acharnes

The Folk Art Museum of Acharnes is a museum in Athens, Greece. It was founded in 1977 by the local Greek Mountaineering Society, which also formed the Historical and Folklore Association in 1981, to which it bequeathed the museum in 1982...

 both of which are housed in a neoclassical building in the main square. The only other town in the municipality is Parnis, which dropped in population from 300 inhabitants in 1991 to only 12 inhabitants in 2001. On 7 September 1999, during the devastationg 1999 Athens earthquake

1999 Athens earthquake

The 1999 Athens earthquake, registering a moment magnitude of 6.0, occurred on September 7, 1999, at 2:56:50 pm local time and lasted approximately 15 seconds. The tremor was epicentered approximately 17 km to the northwest of the city center, in a sparsely populated area between the...

 significant destruction happened to Acharnes, being very close to the epicenter

Epicenter

The epicenter or epicentre is the point on the Earth's surface that is directly above the hypocenter or focus, the point where an earthquake or underground explosion originates...

, as well as to the greater Athens area.

Historical population

Year	Population
1981	41,068
1991	61,352
2001	75,341