Greece Geography is divided in regions and islands groups which are organized (for administrative purposes) into prefectures called "Nomoi".
Greece regions: Central Greece, Peloponnese, Thessaly (east/central), Epirus (west), Macedonia (north/northwest), Thrace (northwest) and Euboea, the second largest of the Greek islands.
Athens is part of the "Nomos Attikis" (Attica), located in the Attica basin, in the centre of the Greek territory.
Characteristics of the regions: The Peloponnese peninsula is located in the southern part of Greece. It is separated from the mainland by the Isthmus of Corinth. The northern mainland geography is dissected by high mountains that extend southwards towards a landscape of fertile plains, pine-forested uplands and craggy, scrub-covered foothills.
The Greek islands: One of the characteristics of the geography of Greece is the large amount of islands. There are more than 2000 Greek islands scattered both in the Aegean and Ionian Seas. The majority are located in the Aegean between the mainland and Turkey.
The Aegean archipelago includes the regions of Saronic ( the closest islands from Athens), the Cyclades (the most famous region with 39 islands such as Santorini, Mykonos, Paros or Naxos), the Dodecanese (lying off the Turkish coast, of which Rhodes is the best known), Crete (the famous and largest island), the Sporades (lying near the city of Volos) and the Northeast Aegean group (including Lemnos, Lesvos, Chios, Samos and Ikaria). The Ionian Sea includes the islands of Corfu, Kefalonia, Lefkada, Ithaki, Zakynthos and Kythira.
Greece Geography: Greece is a peninsular and mountainous country located in Southern Europe, on the Mediterranean, between Albania, Bulgaria, Turkey and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
It is the only EU country whose Geography is sharing a land frontier with another member. Greece is dominating the Aegean and Ionian Sea.
It has a total area of 131,940 square km of which land represents 130,800 square km and water 1,140 square km. Greece geography has a coastline of 13,676 km.
Greece is one of Europe's favourite destination. This section is a complete guide to travel to the different regions of Greece with many photos, descriptions and a large range of accommodation with virtual animations of 360°: hotels, apartments, studios, rooms, villas, resorts, bungalows and much more...
Greece Geography is divided in regions and islands groups which are organized (for administrative purposes) into prefectures called "Nomoi".
Greece regions: Central Greece, Peloponnese, Thessaly (east/central), Epirus (west), Macedonia (north/northwest), Thrace (northwest) and Euboea, the second largest of the Greek islands.
Athens is part of the "Nomos Attikis" (Attica), located in the Attica basin, in the centre of the Greek territory.
Characteristics of the regions: The Peloponnese peninsula is located in the southern part of Greece. It is separated from the mainland by the Isthmus of Corinth. The northern mainland geography is dissected by high mountains that extend southwards towards a landscape of fertile plains, pine-forested uplands and craggy, scrub-covered foothills.
The Greek islands: One of the characteristics of the geography of Greece is the large amount of islands. There are more than 2000 Greek islands scattered both in the Aegean and Ionian Seas. The majority are located in the Aegean between the mainland and Turkey.
The Aegean archipelago includes the regions of Saronic ( the closest islands from Athens), the Cyclades (the most famous region with 39 islands such as Santorini, Mykonos, Paros or Naxos), the Dodecanese (lying off the Turkish coast, of which Rhodes is the best known), Crete (the famous and largest island), the Sporades (lying near the city of Volos) and the Northeast Aegean group (including Lemnos, Lesvos, Chios, Samos and Ikaria).
The Ionian Sea includes the islands of Corfu, Kefalonia, Lefkada, Ithaki, Zakynthos and Kythira.
Greece, officially called the Hellenic Republic (Greek: ???????? ??µ???at?a), is a country in the southeast of Europe on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula. It has land boundaries with Bulgaria, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Albania to the north; and with Turkey to the east. The waters of the Aegean Sea border Greece to the east, and those of the Ionian and Mediterranean Sea to the west and south. Regarded by many as the cradle of Western civilization and the birthplace of democracy, Greece has a long and rich history during which its culture has proven especially influential in Europe, Asia and Africa.
The name of Greece in the European languages (English: Greece, French: Grèce, Portuguese: Grécia, Spanish and Italian: Grecia, German: Griechenland, Russian: ??????, etc.) comes from a different root: G?a???? Graikós (via Latin Graecus) which according to Aristotle was an ancient name for the Greeks. On the other hand, the name of Greece in some Middle Eastern and Eastern languages (Turkish: Yunanistan, Arabic: ?????, Hebrew: ????, ancient Persian: Yaunâ, Indian Pali: Yona, Malay and Indonesian: Yunani) derives from the Greek toponym ????a Ionía. Norwegian is one of the few languages apart from Greek in which the name Hellas predominates.
The shores of Greece's Aegean Sea saw the emergence of the first civilizations in Europe, namely the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations. After these, a Dark Age followed until around 800 BC, when a new era of Greek civilization emerged. This Greece of city-states established colonies along the Mediterranean and partially resisted Persian invasions. Greek culture would later become the basis of the Hellenistic civilization that followed the empire of Alexander the Great.
Militarily Greece itself declined to the point that the Romans conquered the land (168 BC onwards), though Greek culture would in turn conquer Roman life. Greece became a province of the Roman Empire, but Greek culture would continue to dominate the eastern Mediterranean. When the Empire finally split in two the Eastern or Byzantine Empire, centered on Constantinople, remained Greek in nature, as well as encompassing Greece itself. From the 4th century to the 15th century the Eastern Roman Empire survived eleven centuries of attacks from the west and east until Constantinople fell on May 29, 1453 to the Ottoman Empire. Greece proper was gradually conquered by the Ottomans during the 15th century.
When the Ottomans arrived, two Greek migrations occurred. The first migration saw the Greek intelligentsia migrate to Western Europe and influence the advent of the Renaissance. The second migration of Greeks left the plains of the Greek peninsula and resettled in the mountains. As a result, the Ottomans could not conquer the entire Greek peninsula since they did not create either a military or administrative presence in these mountainous regions. There existed many Greek mountain clans all across the peninsula and islands. The Sphakiots of Crete, the Souliots (or Souli) of Epirus, and the Mani (or Maniots) of Peloponnesus were the most resilient mountain clans throughout the Ottoman Empire. By the end of the 16th century up until the 17th century, many Greeks began to migrate back from the mountains to the plains. The millet system contributed to the ethnic cohesion of Orthodox Greeks by segregating the various peoples within the Ottoman Empire based on religion.
The Greek Orthodox Church, an ethno-religious institution, helped the Greeks from all geographical areas of the peninsula (i.e. mountains, plains, and islands) to preserve their ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and racial heritage during the harsh years of Ottoman rule. The Greeks who remained on the plains during Ottoman occupation were either Christians, who dealt with the burdens of foreign rule, or Crypto-Christians (Greek Muslims who were secret practitioners of the Greek Orthodox faith). Many Greeks became Crypto-Christians in order to avoid heavy taxes, while still secretly maintaining their identity and ties to the Greek Orthodox Church. Greeks who converted to Islam and were not Crypto-Christians were deemed Turks in the eyes of Orthodox Greeks.
The Ottomans ruled Greece until the early 19th century. In 1821, the Greeks rebelled and declared their independence, but did not succeed in winning it until 1829. The elites of powerful European nations saw the war of Greek independence, with its accounts of Turkish atrocities, in a romantic light (see, for example, the 1824 painting Massacre of Chios by Eugene Delacroix). Scores of non-Greeks volunteered to fight for the cause--including people like Lord Byron. At times the Ottomans seemed on the verge of entirely suppressing the Greek revolution but were threatened by the direct military intervention of France, England or Russia. The Russian minister of foreign affairs, Ioannis Kapodistrias, himself a Greek, returned home as President of the new Republic following Greek independence.
That republic disappeared when a few years later Western powers helped turn Greece into a monarchy, the first king coming from Bavaria and the second from Denmark. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, in a series of wars with the Ottomans, Greece sought to enlarge its boundaries to include the ethnic Greek population of the Ottoman Empire. Greece slowly grew in territory and population until it reached its present configuration in 1947. In World War I, Greece sided with the entente powers against Turkey and the other Central Powers. In the war's aftermath, the Great Powers awarded parts of Asia Minor to Greece, including the city of Smyrna (known as Izmir today) which had a large Greek population. At that time, however, the Turkish nationalists, led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, overthrew the Ottoman government, organised a military assault on the Greek troops, and defeated them. Immediately afterwards, hundreds of thousands of Turks then living in mainland Greek territory left for Turkey in exchange for the hundreds of thousands of Greeks living in Turkey.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Greece continued to develop slowly with grants and loans through the U.S.A Marshall Plan, and later through growth, notably in the tourism sector. In 1967, the Greek military seized power in a coup d'état and overthrew the right-wing government of Panayiotis Kanellopoulos which had been preparing a general election set for May 28. The military established what became known as the Régime of the Colonels. In 1973, the régime abolished the Greek monarchy. But later in the same year dictator Papadopoulos was himself removed from power in a second coup. Colonel Ioannides was recognised as leader of the second coup but preferred to take second place. A new president, Gizikis, and a new Prime Minister, Androutsopoulos, were appointed.
Ioannides organised a military coup against President Makarios of Cyprus, which was considered a pretext for the first Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 and the resulting crisis between Greece and Turkey. The Cyprus events and the outcry following the bloody suppression of Athens Polytechnic uprising led to the implosion of the military régime. A charismatic exiled politician, Konstantinos Karamanlis, who had also been premier between 1955 and 1963, returned from Paris as interim prime minister and later gained re-election for two further terms at the head of the conservative Nea Dimokratia party, which he founded. In 1975, following a referendum to confirm the deposition of King Constantine II, a democratic republican constitution came into force. Another previously exiled politician, Andreas Papandreou also returned and founded the
socialist PASOK party, which won the elections in 1981 and dominated the country's political course for almost two decades.
Since the restoration of democracy, the stability and economic prosperity of Greece have grown. Greece joined the European Union in 1981 and adopted the Euro as its currency in 2001. New infrastructure, funds from the EU and growing revenues from tourism, shipping, services, light industry and the telecommunications industry have brought Greeks an unprecedented standard of living. Tensions continue to exist between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus and the delimitation of borders in the Aegean Sea, but relations have considerably thawed following successive earthquakes - first in Turkey and then in Greece - and an outpouring of sympathy and generous assistance by ordinary Greeks and Turks.
The 2004 Summer Olympics took place in the country of their birth to widespread praise and satisfaction.
The Parliament in Athens, GreeceThe 1975 constitution includes extensive specific guarantees of civil liberties and vests the powers of the head of state in an indirectly-elected president, who is advised by the Council of the Republic on an ad hoc basis. The Council of the Republic consists of the incumbent Prime Minister, the leaders of all parliamentary parties, and all former Prime Ministers that have received a parliamentary vote of confidence (see "dedilomeni" below) at least once. The Council's advice is not binding.
The prime minister and cabinet play the central role in the political process, while the president performs some governmental functions, in addition to ceremonial duties. The parliament elects the president for a five-year term and can be re-elected once.
Greeks elect the 300 members of the country's unicameral parliament (the Vouli ton Ellinon) by secret ballot for a maximum of four years, but elections can occur at more frequent intervals. Greece uses a complex reinforced proportional representation electoral system which discourages splinter parties and ensures that the party which leads in the national vote will win a majority of seats. A party must receive 3% of the total national vote to gain representation.
Greek parliamentary politics hinge upon the principle of the "dedilomeni", the "declared confidence" of Parliament to the Prime Minister and his/her administration. This is achieved if Parliament approves a new administration's political platform by a majority "plus one" (i.e. 151 votes), and is renewed yearly by voting on the new budget. An administration may label any particular parliamentary vote a "vote of confidence", and conversely the opposition may designate any vote as a "vote of reproach". Both are rare occurrences with usually predictable outcomes as voting outside the party line happens very seldom.
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