Nea Iraklia (pop. 700), like neighboring Nea Kallikrateia, was settled by refugees shipped over from Turkey and Eastern Thrace in the population exchange following the Asia Minor Catastrophe in the early 1920's. Located about 35 km south-southeast of Thessaloniki, Nea Iraklia is just barely inside the northern border of Halkidiki. Leave the town limits heading north, and you leave Halkidiki.
The village gets its income from the traditional 3 sources with which Greek seaside towns gainfully employ their citizens: tourism, farming and fishing. The village church is a beautiful, large, octagonal, white building with a portico around its circumference and a red-tiled dome roof.
The beach has sand, with wind-sculpted sandstone formations in some places, and even dunes in other places. The waters are very clear, mainly because the headland 25 km to the northwest, beyond Nea Michaniona, helps trap the less-clean waters in the inner portion of the Gulf of Thermi on which Thessaloniki fronts. There are plenty of places to stay and to eat, and there are places to go- clubs and bars and the like-for some night life.
