Parga ( ) is a town and municipality located in the northwestern part of the regional unit of Preveza in Epirus, northwestern Greece. The seat of the municipality is the village Kanallaki. Parga lies on the Ionian coast between the cities of Preveza and Igoumenitsa. It is a resort town known for its natural environment. Municipality The present municipality of Parga was formed at the 2011 local government reform by the merger of the following 2 former municipalities, that became municipal units: Fanari Parga The municipality has an area of 274.796 km2, the municipal unit 68.903 km2. History In antiquity the area was inhabited by the Greek tribe of the Thesprotians. Mycenean tholos tombs have been discovered in the vicinity of Parga. The ancient town of Toryne was located there during the late Hellenistic Age. It owes its name due to the shape of its beach ( ladle in Greek). Parga itself is mentioned for the first time in 1318; the name is most likely of Slavic origin. Two years later, the town and its sugarcane plantation proceeds were unsuccessfully offered by Nicholas Orsini, the Despot of Epirus, to the Republic of Venice in exchange for Venetian aid against the Byzantine Empire. During the Epirote rebellion of 1338/39 against the Byzantine emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos, Parga remained loyal to the emperor. The town came under the control of Albanian ruler John Spata of Arta in the 1390s. Vonko, who was also vassal of the Venetians in Fanari, was the governor Parga at this time. After Spata's death, he tried to carve his own fiefdom in 1400. The townspeople considered his rule tyrannical, overthrew him and asked the Venetians for protection. The town passed under Venetian control in 1401, and was administered as a mainland exclave of the Venetian possession of Corfu, under a castellan. Ottoman raids were particularly heavy in the mid 15th century, as the senate gave the citizens of the town a 10-year tax exemption in 1454. A Romaniote Jewish community was recorded in 1496 in Venetian Parga. Throughout the 16th century, Parga was part of the Venetian holdings in coastal Epirus. In 1570, anti-Ottoman rebels commanded by Emmanuel Mormoris that temporarily managed to overthrow Ottoman rule from the coastal regions of Epirus used Parga as a base of operations. Venetian-controlled Parga was in this period in frequent property-related conflict with neighboring, Ottoman-controlled Margariti and was the target