Pyrgos, Elis

Pyrgos is a city in the northwestern Peloponnese, Greece, the capital of the regional unit of Elis and the seat of the Municipality of Pyrgos. The name means tower in Greek. The city lies in the middle of a plain, 4 kilometres from the Ionian Sea, and the river Alfeios flows into the sea about 7 kilometres south of it. It is 16 kilometres west of Olympia, 70 kilometres southwest of Patras and 85 kilometres west of Tripoli. The town has a population of 26,052 and the municipality 45,365 (2021). The municipality was formed in the 2011 local government reform by merging the former municipalities of Iardanos, Oleni, Pyrgos and Volakas, and covers 456.610 square kilometres. According to local tradition, in the 1510s a villager from Kalavryta who had delivered a hoard of ancient gold coins found in a well to the Sultan Selim I was made ruler of the region and built a great tower on a hill, which gave the area its name.