The Sporades are an archipelago along the east coast of Greece, northeast of the island of Euboea, in the Aegean Sea. They consists of 24 islands, four of which are permanently inhabited: Alonnisos, Skiathos, Skopelos and Skyros. They may also be referred to as the Thessalian Sporades. "Sporades" means "those scattered" (compare with "sporadic"), and was used from Classical Antiquity to refer to the Aegean island groups outside the central archipelago of the Cyclades. As a part of the 2011 Kallikratis government reform, the regional unit Sporades was created out of part of the former Magnesia Prefecture, region of Thessaly. The island of Skyros with a few uninhabited islets of its area is part of the region of Central Greece.