Ψυρρή · district
Psyrri scores 24 out of 100 for property crime — above-average crime, on a scale where 50 is the average for Greece. It is home to about 2,344 people at 16,579 people per km².
The score is absolute, not a ranking: 50 is the offence rate for Greece as a whole, 100 the safest end of the scale and 0 the least safe, and every doubling of the rate costs the same number of points wherever you are. Regional units are scored from Eurostat's police-recorded offence rates per 100,000 inhabitants. Greece publishes nothing finer, so municipalities and districts share out their region's measured rate by how built-up they are and by documented local reporting — treat those two levels as an estimate, not a count of reported crime.
Psyrri is the dense triangle of workshops, tavernas and bars between Athinas, Ermou and Pireos, a short walk from Monastiraki. By day it is still partly a working district of leather traders and wholesale shops; by evening it is the busiest eating and drinking quarter in the historic centre, focused on Iroon Square, with Agion Anargyron and Karaiskaki the main evening streets.
It fills up and gets loud - this is where young Athenians and visitors mix, and it stays busy past 2am at weekends. The main streets are crowded and well lit; the short unlit alleys between them are where bag-watching matters.
Good for a first or second trip if you want to walk to dinner and don't mind noise. Ask for a courtyard-facing or upper-floor room. Light sleepers, families with small children and anyone with an early flight should choose Thiseio or Koukaki instead.
Reputation against reality. Psyrri's old reputation as a rough quarter is thirty years out of date; the fair modern criticism is that the main streets have tipped towards visitor-facing bars. The genuinely relevant warning is noise, not danger.
Streets and squares: Iroon Square (Plateia Iroon) · Agion Anargyron · Karaiskaki · Athinas · Ermou · Pireos