is housed in a private building located on the eastern side of the campus and plays a very important role in student life. Inside the Student Club is a restaurant, a reading room, a medical service, a snack bar, and a hairdresser's shop. There is also a musical department and a photography club. The Student Club is responsible for the catering and medical care of the students of A.U.Th. and University of Macedonia. Every day it caters for approximately 12,000 students. Among its other responsibilities, it also organizes artistic, cultural and athletic events and maintains a chorus and a musical department. Sports centre The university gym is located on the eastern side of the university campus, next to the Student Club. It covers an area of 220,000 square metres and was initially founded in 1925, the same year as the university. Since then it has been transferred several times until 1978 when it was finally settled at its present position. Inside the university Sports Centre there is a football field, basketball and tennis courts, handball courts and many more facilities for dancing, weight lifting, ping pong and so on. The National and Poseidonion swimming pools are used for water sports such as swimming, water polo, water aerobics, and synchronized swimming. The students participating in the sports programs of the centre can take part in the internal championships organized by the Sports Centre or in the inter-university national championships organized by the Sports Committee of the Higher Education in Greece. The A.U.Th. has always participated in these national championships with great success. Residence halls Aristotle University of Thessaloniki owns three branches of residence halls for AUTh students with a capacity of 1,740 students; they are administered by the National Youth Foundation. They include reading rooms, sport facilities, restaurants, café etc. Two branches are in the city centre, one in "40 Ekklisies" near the campus and one in the former "Egnatia" Hotel in Vardaris. The third branch is located in Kalamaria. The residence halls are reserved for students with special needs, such as members of low-income or large families, as well as some foreign students. Seismological Station The Aristotle University Seismological Station was founded in 1978 and is used since then for the detection and measurement of earthquakes that occur nationwide and worldwide. It is mainly used by researchers of the geophysics sector, which is a part of the Department of Geology