Lárisa, also Larissa, city in eastern Greece, capital of Lárisa Department. The city lies in the heart of the wide and fertile plain of Thessaly, which is watered by the Piniós River. Lárisa is a busy railroad and trading center for an agricultural region that produces fruit, wheat, vegetables, and tobacco. Its limited industrial enterprises produce silk, sugar, and ouzo, an anise-flavored liqueur.
Home to Hippocrates, often called the father of medicine, and the poet Pindar, Lárisa ranked as a leading city of ancient Thessaly. It changed hands repeatedly; the Romans, and later the Ottomans, ruled the longest. A 1941 earthquake and German occupation during World War II left the city heavily damaged. Population 113,090 (1991).
