Andravida (Greek: Ανδραβίδα, [anðraˈviða]) is a town and a former municipality in Elis, in the northwest of the Peloponnese peninsula of Greece.
Andravida's early history is obscure: the name is of unknown provenance—several proposals have been made, the most probable of which is that it derives from a Slavic name for "place of the otters"—and the site is not mentioned before the conquest by the Crusaders in 1205, even though it certainly existed before that.
[5] Soon after the Frankish conquest, Andravida (known as Andreville in French, Andrevilla in Aragonese and Andravilla in Italian) became the residence of the princes of the newly established Principality of Achaea.
As the medievalist Antoine Bon points out, Andravida's choice as the de facto capital of the principality rested on its favourable location: situated in the midst of the fertile plain of Elis, it was well provisioned and could sustain horses, it was located near the major port town of Glarentza, but not on the coast and hence not vulnerable to seaborne raids, and was equally far from the mountains of the central Peloponnese with their rebellious inhabitants.
Early 19th-century travellers like François Pouqueville and Jean Alexandre Buchon reported that the three churches were still largely extant, but today only Saint Sophia survives to a substantial extent.