History of Zagori
ranges from prehistoric times
and shows continuous
human presence
throughout the centuries,
to the present day.

According to evidence based on research by prehistoric archaeologists on the Voidomatis River, Zagori was inhabited at least from the last ice age, about 15.000 to 17.000 years before today. The surveys concluded that hunters were visiting temporarily, during the warm season, the Rockshelters of Kleidi and Boila, at the banks of Voidomatis river in West Zagori.
The archaeologist Dr. Eleni Kotzampopoulou, presents a brief summary of this part of Zagori’s history.
The next evidence of human presence is from the Bronze Age and was discovered between the villages of Vitsa and Monodendri. The settlement excavated there was also inhabited during the summers.

The first written records mentioning Zagori date back to the 14th century. According to local scholar Ioannis Papaioannou, there was an old manuscript, lost in the 19th century, which mentions the village of Papingo as the border between the Eastern and Western Roman Empire and the respective divisions of the Christian Church. In addition, the same manuscript mentioned two churches in the village founded during the 7th century. In addition, Roman-era artifacts were discovered in Papingo and in neighbouring Aristi.
Zagori has several ruins of ancient fortifications or settlements in all three parts. Such as, near the villages of Makrino, Skamneli, Dikorfo, Asprangeli and Agios Minas. Also, in West Zagori, extensive remains of a Roman road still survive, passing by the ruins of an ancient city called Roinikos or Reunikos, according to 19th century scholars. The city was linked to the fortification of Kastraki on the adjacent hill of the same name, near the village of Agios Menas, which probably served as its acropolis, the shelter-fortress. Unfortunately, no serious excavation has yet been carried out for any of these and the only information we have at present comes from surface finds or surveys.

During the years of Ottoman rule, the surnames of Zagori, along with those of Ioannina, signed a treaty with the arriving Ottoman army for a series of important privileges, several years before the fall of Constantinople. Zagori retained a significant degree of autonomy, with its own government, its own military garrison and its own legal state, in exchange for high taxation and an agreed commitment to cavalry service. It was during this period, and particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries, that Zagori experienced its golden age. Adult male Zagorians emigrated and organised themselves into communities throughout Eastern and Central Europe, the Middle East and Egypt, where they mostly maintained several prosperous commercial enterprises. In all these expatriate communities were also dispersed a large number of teachers from Zagori. The commercial and organizational patterns of the Zagori expatriates are said to have been inspired by the model of the Jewish community of Ioannina.

Zagori became part of modern Greece when Epirus and Ioannina were liberated from the Ottomans in 1912.
The place suffered heavy losses in population and much of its architectural heritage was destroyed in World War II, as most of its eastern villages were burned in revenge for the inhabitants helping the resistance against the Wehrmacht.

After the Greek Civil War (1946-1949), Zagori experienced a great decline in its population, as many of its inhabitants began to seek a better life away from the hardships of this mountainous region.

Zagori, and particularly its central and western part, following specific government measures such as the declaration of the Vikos-Aoos National Park, the adoption of protective legislation for its cultural heritage and pilot programmes for the development of soft tourism in some of its villages, began to develop as a tourist destination in the 1980s. As of September 2023, Zagori is now inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as a Cultural Landscape.