Piraeus is a port city in Attica, Greece, located 7 miles southwest of the city center of Athens. Piraeus was inhabited since around 2500 BC, and it assumed its importance in the Greek world due to its three deep water harbors in the Saronic Gulf. In 507 BC, Piraeus became a suburb of Athens under Cleisthenes, and, in 493 BC, Themistocles initiated the city's fortification. Starting with the 480 BC Battle of Salamis, Piraeus became the permanent base of the Athenian navy, and it became a great military and commercial harbor for Athens. In 404 BC, at the end of the Peloponnesian War, the Spartan admiral Lysander blockaded Piraeus, forcing Athens to surrender and the Delian League to dissolve. In 393 BC, Conon rebuilt Piraeus' walls, and the reconstruction of the city continued under Alexander the Great. In 86 BC, the Roman general Sulla captured and totally destroyed Piraeus, ending its revival; in 395 AD, the Goths under Alaric I completed the city's destruction. For fifteen centuries, Piraeus continued to decline, and Piraeus was mostly deserted even under Ottoman rule. It was not until 1829 that permanent inhabitation of the area restarted, and it began to develop into a commercial and industrial center. Piraeus quickly became Greece's leading port and second-largest city, becoming an important international port after World War II. In 2011, Piraeus had a population of 448,997 people.
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