Pílos, also Pylos, town, western Greece, in Pelopónnisos (Peloponnesus) Region, at the southern entrance to Pílos (Navarino) Bay, near Kalámai. The main industries are fishing and livestock raising. Pílos Bay is one of the finest harbors in Greece.
Excavations near the northern shore of the bay have yielded the remains of a 13th-century BC palace said to have belonged to Nestor, legendary king of Messenia. Ancient Pílos began to decline when Messenia was conquered by Sparta in the 8th century BC. Pílos Bay was the site of an Athenian victory over Sparta in 425 BC. In the Middle Ages ancient Pílos was called Palaeo Navarino; the present city developed on the southern shore of the bay and was called Navarino. It was held by the Ottoman Empire almost continuously from 1498 until 1827, when a Ottoman-Egyptian fleet was defeated by a British-French-Russian fleet in the Battle of Navarino. The town was renamed Pílos in the late 19th century. Population (1991) 2,473.
