page_title: Chameria
section_title: Demographics
hierarchical_section_title: Chameria / Demographics
caption_attribution_description: English: Albanian Cham dialect 19th century-early 20th century
context_page_description: Chameria is a term used today mostly by Albanians for parts of the coastal region of Epirus in southern Albania and the historical Greek region of Epirus, traditionally associated with an Albanian speaking population called Chams. For a brief period, three kazas were combined by the Ottomans into an administrative district called Çamlak sancak. Apart from geographical usages, in contemporary times within Albania the toponym has also acquired irredentist connotations. During the interwar period, the toponym was in common use and the official name of the area above the Acheron river in all Greek state documents. Today it is obsolete in Greek, surviving in some old folk songs. Most of what is called Chameria is divided between the Greek regional units of Thesprotia and Preveza, the southern extremity of Albania's Sarandë District and some villages in eastern Ioannina regional unit. As the Greek toponyms Epirus and Thesprotia have been established for the region since antiquity, and given the negative sentiments towards Albanian irredentism, the term is not used by the locals on the Greek side of the border.
context_section_description: Since the Medieval Ages, the population of the region of Chameria was of mixed and complex ethnicity, with a blurring of group identities such as Albanian and Greek, along with many other ethnic groups. Information on the ethnic composition of the region over several centuries is almost entirely absent, with the strong likelihood that they did not fit into standard "national" patterns, as the 19th-century revolutionary nationalist movements wanted.
caption: Maximum extent of Cham Albanian dialect: 19th century till 1912/1913 (Hatched line), according to Kokolakis.M. Population (irrespective of linguistic background) shown by religion: Muslim majority (Brown), Orthodox majority (Pink), Mixed (Light Brown). Colored areas do not imply that Albanian-speakers formed the majority of the population.
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