The name Kalamaria was first used in 1083 to denote the area southeast of Thessaloniki, including but not limited to the area of the present-day municipality.

During the Byzantine and the Ottoman periods, the area was mostly uninhabited, except for a few fishing lodges.

The first settlement was created in the early 1920s to house Asia Minor refugees from the Greek diaspora in Georgia and Asia Minor, who fled or were forcibly sent to Greece as a result of the Greco-Turkish War.

As many as 100,000 refugees relocated to Thessaloniki, primarily to the city’s suburbs. Refugees from Asia Minor and East Thrace mainly settled in Kalamaria