According to Ottoman traveller Hadji Khalfa, the area was populated only by Greeks and Turks. After the 15th century the area relied on its agricultural economy. Many farm workers came from other places of the Ottoman Empire, in order to work because many locals refused to work in Ottoman owned farms. After the 16th century, many Sarakatsani arrived in the area from Epirus. During 17th and 18th centuries, Vlachs came also in the area, from Western Macedonia, removed because of Turkish/Albanian loots. It is remarkable that in the villages Evzoni and Korona, people used to speak a Romance dialect, called Megleno-Romanian. There are such speakers even nowadays. Researcher Maria Papageorgiou claims that a lot of plays of ancient Greek tragic poets, not preserved nowadays, were kept verbally, in this dialect, as tales.