Greece , officially the
Hellenic Republic (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία,
Ellīnikī́ Dīmokratía, ), is a
countryIn geography, a country is a geographical region. The term is often applied to a political division or the territory of a state, or to a smaller, or former, political division of a geographical region...
in southeastern Europe, situated on the southern end of the
Balkan PeninsulaThe Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
.
The country has borders with
AlbaniaAlbania , officially the Republic of Albania , is a Mediterranean country in South Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Montenegro to the north, Kosovo to the northeast, Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south-east...
, the
Republic of MacedoniaMacedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country in the central Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
and
BulgariaBulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a country in the Balkans in south-eastern Europe. Bulgaria borders five other countries: Romania to the north , Serbia and the Republic of Macedonia to the west, and Greece and Turkey to the south...
to the north, and
TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey
, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe...
to the east. The
Aegean SeaThe Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey respectively. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...
lies to the east and south of mainland Greece, while the
Ionian SeaThe Ionian Sea is an arm of the Mediterranean Sea, south of the Adriatic Sea. It is bounded by southern Italy including Calabria, Sicily and the Salento peninsula to the west, and by southwestern Albania, including Saranda and Himara, and a large number of Greek islands, including Corfu, Zante,...
lies to the west. Both parts of the Eastern
MediterraneanThe Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by Africa, and on the east by the Levant. The sea is technically a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it...
basin feature a vast number of
islands, islets and rock islands.
Modern Greece traces its roots to the civilization of
ancient GreeceAncient Greece is the civilisation belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. It is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the...
, generally considered to be the cradle of
Western civilizationWestern culture refers to cultures of European origin.The term "Western culture" is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and technologies...
. As such, it is the birthplace of
democracyDemocracy is a system of government in which either the actual governing is carried out by the people governed , or the power to do so is granted by them...
,
Western philosophyWestern philosophy is the philosophical thought and work of the Western or Occidental world, as distinct from Eastern or Oriental philosophies and the varieties of indigenous philosophies....
, the
Olympic GamesThe Olympic Games are a major international event of summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes compete in a wide variety of events. The Games are currently held every two years, with Summer and Winter Olympic Games alternating. Originally, the ancient Olympic Games were held in...
,
Western literatureWestern literature refers to the literature written in the languages of Europe, including the ones belonging to the Indo-European language family as well as several geographically or historically related languages such as Basque, Hungarian, and so forth...
and
historiographyHistoriography is the history of history, the aspect of history and of semiotics that considers how knowledge of the past, either recent or distant, is obtained and transmitted...
,
political sciencePolitical science is a social science concerned with the theory and practice of politics and the description and analysis of political systems and political behavior. It is often described as the pragmatic application of the art and science of politics defined as "who gets what, when and how",...
, major scientific and
mathematicalGreek mathematics, as that term is used in this article, is the mathematics written in Greek, developed from the 6th century BC to the 5th century AD around the Eastern shores of the Mediterranean. The word "mathematics" itself derives from the ancient Greek μάθημα , meaning "subject of...
principles, and Western
dramaDrama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a collective...
, including both
tragedyTragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that, paradoxically, offers its audience pleasure...
and
comedyComedy as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse generally intended to amuse, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in Ancient Greece...
.
Greece is a
developed countryThe term developed country is used to describe countries that have a high level of development according to some criteria. Which criteria, and which countries are classified as being developed, is a contentious issue and there is fierce debate about this. Economic criteria have tended to dominate...
, a member of the
European UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 Member States, located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community...
since 1981, a member of the
Economic and Monetary Union of the European UnionA monetary union is an arrangement where several countries have agreed to share a single currency amongst themselves. The European Economic and Monetary Union consists of three stages coordinating economic policy, achieving economic convergence and culminating with the adoption of the euro, the...
since 2001,
NATOThe North Atlantic Treaty Organization ); ), also called "the Atlantic Alliance", is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on April 4, 1949...
since 1952, the
OECDThe Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is an international organisation of 30 countries that accept the principles of representative democracy and free-market economy...
since 1961, the
WEUThe Western European Union is a largely dormant intergovernmental defence and security organisation, established on the basis of the Treaty of Brussels of 1948, with the accession of West Germany and Italy in 1954. The WEU headquarters are in Brussels...
since 1995, a founding member of the
Black Sea Economic CooperationOn 25 June 1992, the Heads of State and Government of eleven countries signed in Istanbul the Summit Declaration and the Bosporus Statement giving birth to the Black Sea Economic Cooperation ...
and a member of
ESA|owner = |headquarters = Paris|spaceport = Guiana Space Centre|image = ESA LOGO.svg|size = 240px|acronym = ESA|established = 1975|administrator = Jean-Jacques Dordain...
since 2005.
AthensAthens , the capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the world's oldest cities, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
is the capital;
ThessalonikiThessaloniki , Thessalonica, or Salonica is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the Greek region of Macedonia. It is honorarily called the Συμπρωτεύουσα Symprotevousa of Greece, as it was once called the συμβασιλεύουσα symvasilevousa of the Byzantine Empire...
,
PatrasPatras is Greece's third largest urban centre and the capital of the prefecture of Achaea, located in northern Peloponnese, 215 kilometers west of Athens...
,
HeraklionHeraklion or Iraklion , is the largest city and capital of Crete. It is also the fourth largest city in Greece. Its name is also spelled Herakleion, a transliteration of the ancient Greek and Katharevousa name, , or Iraklio, among other variants...
,
LarissaLarissa is a city and the capital of the Thessaly periphery of Greece, and capital of the Larissa Prefecture. It is a principal agricultural centre and a national transportation hub, linked by rail with the port of Volos and with Thessaloniki and Athens...
,
VolosVolos is a coastal port city situated at the center of the Greek mainland, about 326 km north from Athens and 215 km south from Thessaloniki...
,
IoanninaIoannina is a city of Epirus, north-western Greece, with a metropolitan population of approximately 100,000, and lies at an elevation of 600 metres above sea level. It is the capital of Ioannina Prefecture and of Epirus, lying on the western side of lake Pamvotis...
,
KavalaKavala , is the second largest city in northern Greece, the principal seaport of eastern Macedonia and the capital of Kavala prefecture. It is situated on the Bay of Kavala, across from the island of Thasos.-Antiquity:...
, Rhodes and
SerresSerres is a city in Greece, seat of the Serres prefecture.Serres may also refer to:Places:* Serres, Germany, a part of Wiernsheim in Baden-WürttembergIn France:* Serres, Aude in the Aude département...
are some of the country's other major cities.
History
Greece was the first area in Europe where advanced early civilizations emerged, beginning with the
Minoan civilizationThe Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age civilization which arose on the island of Crete. The Minoan culture flourished from approximately 2700 to 1450 BC; afterwards, Mycenaean Greek culture became dominant at Minoan sites in Crete...
in Crete and then the
MyceneanMycenae , is an archaeological site in Greece, located about 90 km south-west of Athens, in the north-eastern Peloponnese. Argos is 6 km to the south; Corinth, 48 km to the north...
civilization on the mainland. Later, city-states emerged across the Greek peninsula and spread to the shores of
Black Seaur a loser!The Black Sea is an inland sea bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas and various straits. The Bosporus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects it to...
, South Italy and Asia Minor reaching great levels of
prosperityWealth is an abundance of valuable resources or material possessions. The word is derived from the old English wela, which is from an Indo-European word stem...
that resulted in an unprecedented cultural boom, expressed in
architectureThe Parthenon is a temple of the Greek goddess Athena whom the people of Athens considered their protector. It was built in the 5th century BC on the Athenian Acropolis. It is the most important surviving building of Classical Greece, generally considered to be the culmination of the development...
,
dramaDrama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a collective...
,
scienceScience is in its broadest sense to any systematic knowledge-base or prescriptive practice that is capable of resulting in a prediction or predictable type of outcome...
and
philosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
, and nurtured in
AthensThe city of Athens during classical antiquity was a notable polis of Attica, Greece, leading the Delian League in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta and the Peloponnesian League. Athenian democracy was established in 508 BC under Cleisthenes following the tyranny of Hippias...
under a
democraticDemocracy is a system of government in which either the actual governing is carried out by the people governed , or the power to do so is granted by them...
environment.
AthensAthens , the capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the world's oldest cities, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
and
SpartaSparta was a city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the River Eurotas in the southern part of the Peloponnese. From c. 650 BC it rose to become the dominant military power in the region and as such was recognized as the overall leader of the combined Greek forces during the Greco-Persian Wars...
led the way in repelling the
Persian EmpireThe Achaemenid Empire or Persian Empire was the successor state of the Median Empire, ruling over significant portions of what would become Greater Iran. The Persian and the Median Empire taken together are also known as the Medo-Persian Empire, succeeding the Neo-Assyrian Empire...
in a series of
battlesFor other Persian wars, see Roman-Persian Wars, Arab-Persian Wars, Persian Gulf Wars, and Military history of Iran.The Greco-Persian Wars , were a series of conflicts between the Persian Empire and city-states of the Hellenic world that started in 499 BC and lasted until 450 BC...
. Both were later overshadowed by
ThebesThebes was a Boeotian city-state , situated to the north of the Cithaeron range, which divides Boeotia from Attica, and on the southern edge of the Boeotian plain...
and eventually
MacedonMacedonia or Macedon was an ancient kingdom, centered in the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, bordered by Epirus to the west, Paionia to the north, the region of Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south...
, with the latter under the guidance of
Alexander the GreatAlexander III of Macedon, popularly known as Alexander the Great , was an Ancient Greek king of Macedon who created one of the largest empires in ancient history...
uniting and leading the Greek world to victory over the Persians, to presage the Hellenistic era, itself brought only partially to a close two centuries later with the establishment of
RomanThe Roman Republic was the phase of the ancient Roman civilization characterized by a republican form of government. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, c...
rule over Greek lands in 146 BC. Many Greeks migrated to
AlexandriaAlexandria , with a population of 4.1 million, is the second-largest city in Egypt, and is the country's largest seaport, serving about 80% of Egypt's imports and exports...
,
AntiochAntioch on the Orontes was an ancient city on the eastern side of the Orontes River...
,
SeleuciaSeleucia was the first capital of the Seleucid Empire, and one of the great cities of antiquity standing in Mesopotamia, on the Tigris River.Seleucia may refer to:...
and the many other new Hellenistic cities in
AsiaThe Seleucid Empire was a Hellenistic empire, i.e. a successor state of Alexander the Great's empire. The Seleucid Empire was centered in the near East and at the height of its power included central Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Persia, today's Turkmenistan, Pamir and parts of Pakistan...
and
AfricaThe Ptolemaic Kingdom in and around Egypt began following Alexander the Great's conquest in 332 BC and ended with the death of Cleopatra VII and the Roman conquest in 30 BC. It was founded when Ptolemy I Soter declared himself Pharaoh of Egypt, creating a powerful Hellenistic state stretching from...
founded in Alexander's wake.
The subsequent mixture of
RomanAncient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
and Hellenic cultures took form in the establishment of the
Byzantine EmpireThe Byzantine Empire or Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on the capital of Constantinople, and ruled by Emperors in direct and de jure succession to the ancient Roman Emperors...
in 330 AD around
ConstantinopleConstantinople was the imperial capital of the Roman Empire , the Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire , the Latin Empire , and the Ottoman Empire...
. Byzantium remained a major cultural and military power for the next 1,123 years, until the
Fall of ConstantinopleThe Fall of Constantinople was the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire which occurred after a siege laid by the Ottoman Empire, under the command of Sultan Mehmed II. The siege lasted from Thursday, 5 April, 1453 until Tuesday, 29 May, 1453 , when the city fell to the Ottomans...
to the
Ottoman TurksThe Ottoman Turks were the subdivision of the Ottoman Muslim Millet that dominated the ruling class of the Ottoman Empire. Reliable information about the early history of the Ottomans is scarce. According to some sources , the leader of the Kayi tribe of the Oguz Turks, Ertugrul, left Persia in...
in 1453. On the eve of the Ottoman conquest, much of the Greek intelligentsia migrated to Italy and other parts of Europe not under Ottoman rule, playing a significant role in the
RenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe...
through the transmission of
ancient GreekAncient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic , Classical , and Hellenistic periods of ancient Greece and the ancient world. It is predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
works to
Western EuropeWestern Europe is the collection of countries in the westernmost region of Europe, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a cultural entity—the region lying west of Central Europe...
. Nevertheless, the
Ottoman milletMillet is an Ottoman Turkish term for a confessional community in the Ottoman Empire. In the 19th century, with the Tanzimat reforms, the term started to refer to legally protected religious minority groups, other than the ruling Sunni. Millet comes from the Arabic word millah and literally means...
system contributed to the cohesion of the Orthodox Greeks by segregating the various peoples within the empire based on religion, as the latter played an integral role in the formation of modern Greek identity.
After the
Greek War of IndependenceThe Greek War of Independence was a successful war of independence waged by the Greek revolutionaries between 1821 and 1829, with later assistance from several European powers, against the Ottoman Empire, who were assisted by their vassals, the Egyptian Khedivate and partly the Vilayet of...
, successfully waged against the
Ottoman EmpireThe Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299 to November 1, 1922 The Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State (Ottoman Turkish: دَوْلَتِ عَلِیَّهِ عُثْمَانِیَّه Dawlet-il ʿAliyyat-il ʿOs̠māniyye, Modern Turkish:...
from 1821 to 1829, the nascent Greek state was finally recognized under the
London Protocol-1829:On 22 March 1829, a conference of ambassadors of the three protecting powers established the borders of Greece, which was to encompass all lands south of the line running from the Ambracian Gulf to the Pagasetic Gulf, including Negroponte and the Cyclades but not Crete...
. In 1827,
Ioannis KapodistriasCount Ioannis Antonios Kapodistrias was a Greek diplomat of the Russian Empire and later first head of state of independent Greece.-Background and early career:Ioannis Kapodistrias was born in Corfu, Count Ioannis Antonios Kapodistrias ( – Komis Ioannis Antonios Kapodistrias, in , Conte...
, from
Ionian IslandsThe Ionian Islands are a group of islands in Greece. They are traditionally called "Eptanisa", i.e...
, was chosen as the first governor of the new Republic. However, following his assassination, the Great Powers installed a
monarchyThe Kingdom of Greece was a state established in 1832 in the Convention of London by the Great Powers...
under
OttoOtto, King of Greece was made the first modern king of Greece in 1832 under the Convention of London, whereby Greece became a new independent kingdom under the protection of the Great Powers .The second son of the philhellene King Ludwig I of Bavaria, Otto ascended the...
, of the Bavarian House of Wittelsbach. In 1843, an uprising forced the King to grant a constitution and a representative assembly. Due to his unimpaired authoritarian rule, he was eventually dethroned in 1863 and replaced by Prince Vilhelm (William) of Denmark, who took the name
George IGeorge I, King of the Hellenes was King of Greece from 1863 to 1913. Originally a Danish prince, George was only 17 years old when he was elected King by the Greek National Assembly, which had deposed the former King Otto...
and brought with him the
Ionian IslandsThe Ionian Islands are a group of islands in Greece. They are traditionally called "Eptanisa", i.e...
as a coronation gift from
BritainThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
. In 1877,
Charilaos TrikoupisCharilaos Trikoupis was a Greek politician who served as a Prime Minister of Greece seven times from 1875 until 1895....
, who is attributed with the significant improvement of the country's infrastructure, curbed the power of the monarchy to interfere in the assembly by issuing the rule of vote of confidence to any potential
prime ministerA prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. The position is usually held by, but need not always be held by, a politician. In many systems, the prime minister selects and can dismiss other members of the cabinet, and...
.
As a result of the
Balkan WarsThe Balkan Wars were two wars in South-eastern Europe in 1912–1913. The First Balkan War broke out on 8 October 1912 when Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro and Serbia , having large parts of their ethnic populations under Ottoman sovereignty, attacked the Ottoman Empire, terminating its five-century...
, Greece successfully increased the extent of her territory and population, a challenging context both socially and economically. In the following years, the struggle between
King Constantine IConstantine I, King of the Hellenes was King of Greece from 1913 to 1917 and from 1920 to 1922. He was Commander-in-Chief of the Hellenic Army during the unsuccessful Greco-Turkish War of 1897 and led the Greek forces during the successful Balkan Wars of 1912-1913, in which Greece captured...
and charismatic Prime Minister
Eleftherios VenizelosEleftherios Venizelos was an eminent Greek revolutionary, a prominent and illustrious statesman as well as a charismatic leader in the early 20th century...
over the country's foreign policy on the eve of
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
dominated the country's political scene, and divided the country into two opposed groups.
In the aftermath of WWI, Greece
foughtThe Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922, also called the War in Asia Minor or the Greek campaign of the Turkish War of Independence or The Asia Minor Catastrophe, was a series of military events occurring during the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire after World War I between May 1919 and October 1922...
against Turkish nationalists led by
Mustafa KemalMustafa Kemal Atatürk was a Turkish army officer, revolutionary statesman, and founder of the Republic of Turkey as well as its first President....
, a war which resulted in a massive population exchange between the two countries under the
Treaty of LausanneThe Treaty of Lausanne was a peace treaty signed in Lausanne, Switzerland, that settled the Anatolian and East Thracian parts of the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire by annulment of the Treaty of Sèvres that was signed by the Constantinople-based Ottoman government; as the consequence of the...
. According to various sources, several hundred thousand
Pontic GreeksThe Pontian Greeks are an ethnic group consisting of Greeks from the shores of the Black Sea and Pontus...
died during this period. Instability and successive
coups d'étatA coup d'état , or coup for short, is the sudden unconstitutional deposition of a legitimate government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another, either civil or military...
marked the following era, which was overshadowed by the massive task of incorporating 1.5 million
Greek refugeesGreek refugees is a collective term used to refer to the Greeks from Asia Minor who were evacuated or relocated in Greece following the Treaty of Lausanne and the Population exchange between Greece and Turkey...
from Asia Minor into Greek society. The Greek population in
IstanbulIstanbul is the largest city in Turkey and fifth largest city proper in the world with a population of 12.6 million. Istanbul is also a megacity, as well as the cultural and financial centre of Turkey. The city covers 39 districts of the Istanbul province...
had shrunk from 300,000 at the turn of the century to around 3,000 in the city today. On 28 October 1940 Fascist
ItalyThe Kingdom of Italy was a state forged in 1861 by the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia which is its legal predecessor State, and with the decisive help of France and Great Britain...
demanded the surrender of Greece, but Greek dictator
Ioannis MetaxasIoannis Metaxas was a Greek General, appointed Prime Minister of Greece between April-August 1936 and dictator during the 4th of August Regime, from 1936 until his death in 1941.- Military career :...
refused and in the following
Greco-Italian WarThe Greco-Italian War was a conflict between Italy and Greece which lasted from 28 October 1940 to 23 April 1941. It marked the beginning of the Balkans Campaign of World War II...
, Greece repelled Italian forces into
AlbaniaAlbania , officially the Republic of Albania , is a Mediterranean country in South Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Montenegro to the north, Kosovo to the northeast, Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south-east...
, giving the
AlliesThe Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . The involvement of the Allies in World War II was either natural and inevitable they were invaded or under the direct threat of invasion by the Axis or compelled by concerns that the Axis powers...
their first victory over
AxisThe Axis powers comprised the countries that were opposed to the Allies during World War II. The three major Axis powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan—were part of a military alliance on the signing of the Tripartite Pact in September 1940, which officially founded the Axis powers...
forces on land. The country would eventually fall to urgently dispatched German forces during the
Battle of GreeceThe Battle of Greece was a World War II battle that occurred on the Greek mainland and in southern Albania. The battle was fought between the Allied and Axis forces...
. The German occupiers nevertheless met serious challenges from the
Greek ResistanceThe Greek Resistance is the blanket term for a number of armed and unarmed groups from across the political spectrum that resisted the Axis Occupation of Greece in the period 1941-1944, during the Second World War.-Origins:...
. Over 100,000 civilians died from starvation during the winter of 1941–42. In 1943 virtually the entire
JewishThere have been organized Jewish communities in Greece for more than two thousand years. The oldest and the most characteristic Jewish group that has inhabited Greece are the Romaniotes, also known as "Greek Jews"...
population was deported to Nazi extermination camps.
After liberation, Greece experienced a bitter
civil warThe Greek Civil War was fought from 1946 to 1949 between the Greek governmental army, backed by the United Kingdom, United States, and the Democratic Army of Greece , the military branch of the Greek Communist Party , backed by Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Albania...
between
communistCommunism is a socioeconomic structure and political ideology that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless society based on common ownership and control of the means of production and property in general. Karl Marx posited that communism would be the final stage in human...
and anticommunist forces, which led to economic devastation and severe social tensions between
rightistsIn politics, right-wing, political right, rightist and the Right are terms used to describe a number of positions and ideologies. They are most commonly used to refer to support for preserving traditional or cultural values and customs or for maintaining some form of social hierarchy or private...
and largely communist
leftistsIn politics, left-wing, political left, leftist and the Left are terms used to describe a number of positions and ideologies. They are most commonly used to refer to support for changing traditional social orders or for creating a more egalitarian distribution of wealth and privilege...
for the next 30 years. The next 20 years were characterized by marginalisation of the left in the political and social spheres but also by
rapid economic growthThe term Greek economic miracle has been used to describe the impressive rate of economic and social development in Greece from the early 1950s to the mid-1970s. Between 1950 and 1973, the country had an average rate of economic growth of 7%, second in the world only to Japan’s during the same...
, propelled in part by the
Marshall PlanThe Marshall Plan was the primary plan of the United States for rebuilding and creating a stronger foundation for the countries of Western Europe, and repelling communism after World War II...
.
King
ConstantineConstantine II, King of the Hellenes was King of Greece from 1964 until deposed in 1973...
's
dismissalThe terms Apostasia or Iouliana or the Royal Coup are used to describe the political crisis in Greece that centred around the resignation, on 15 July 1965, of Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou and the appointment, by King Constantine II, of successive Prime Ministers from Papandreou's own...
of
George PapandreouGeorge Papandreou was a Greek politician who served three terms as Prime Minister of Greece. He was born at Kalentzi, in Achaea in West Greece. As a young man, he became involved in politics as a supporter of the Liberal leader Eleftherios Venizelos, who made him Governor of Chios after the...
's centrist government in July 1965 prompted a prolonged period of political turbulence which culminated in a coup d'état on 21 April 1967 by the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
-backed Regime of the Colonels. The brutal suppression of the
Athens Polytechnic uprisingThe Athens Polytechnic uprising in 1973 was a massive demonstration of popular rejection of the Greek military junta of 1967-1974. The uprising began on November 14, 1973, escalated to an open anti-junta revolt and ended in bloodshed in the early morning of November 17 after a series of events...
on 17 November 1973 sent shockwaves through the regime, and a counter-coup established
BrigadierBrigadier is a military rank, the meaning of which has a considerable variation.-Officer rank:In many countries, especially those formerly part of the former British Empire, a Brigadier is either the highest field rank or most junior General appointment, nominally commanding a brigade...
Dimitrios Ioannidis as dictator. On 20 July 1974, as
TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey
, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe...
invadedThe Turkish invasion of Cyprus, launched on 20 July 1974, was a Turkish military operation in response to a Greek military junta backed coup in Cyprus which had been staged by the Cypriot National Guard whose leaders deposed the Cypriot president and archbishop Makarios III and installed Nikos...
the island of
CyprusCyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country situated in the eastern Mediterranean, south of Turkey and west of Syria and Lebanon....
, the regime collapsed.
Former premier Konstantinos Karamanlis was invited back from
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
where he had lived in self-exile since 1963, marking the beginning of the
MetapolitefsiThe Metapolitefsi was a period in Greek history after the fall of the Greek military junta of 1967–1974 that includes the transitional period from the fall of the dictatorship to the Greek legislative elections of 1974 and the democratic period immediately after these elections.The long...
era. On the 14 August 1974 Greek forces withdrew from the integrated military structure of
NATOThe North Atlantic Treaty Organization ); ), also called "the Atlantic Alliance", is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on April 4, 1949...
in protest at the Turkish occupation of northern Cyprus. The first multiparty
electionsThe first free elections since 1964 and after the end of the Greek military junta of 1967-1974 took place in Greece on November 17, 1974 during the metapolitefsi....
since 1964 were held on the first anniversary of the Polytechnic uprising. A democratic and republican
constitutionThe Constitution of Greece , was created by the Fifth Revisional Parliament of the Hellenes and entered into force in 1975. It has been revised twice since, in 1986 and in 2001. The Constitutional history of Greece goes back to the Greek War of Independence, during which the first three...
was promulgated on 11 June 1975 following a referendum which abolished the monarchy. Meanwhile,
Andreas PapandreouAndreas Papandreou was a Greek economist, a socialist politician and a dominant figure in Greek politics. He served two terms as Prime Minister of Greece...
founded the
Panhellenic Socialist MovementThe Panhellenic Socialist Movement, better known as PASOK , is a Greek centre-left political party. In 1981 PASOK formed the first socialist government in Greece's history, and subsequently governed the country for most of the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s...
(PASOK) in response to Karamanlis's conservative
New DemocracyNew Democracy is the main centre-right political party and one of the two major parties in Greece. It was founded in 1974 by Konstantinos Karamanlis and formed the first cabinet of the Third Hellenic Republic...
party, with the two political formations alternating in government ever since. Greece rejoined NATO in 1980. Traditionally strained relations with neighbouring Turkey improved when successive earthquakes hit both nations in 1999, leading to the lifting of the Greek veto against Turkey's
bidTurkey's application to accede to the European Union was made on 14 April 1987. Turkey has been an associate member of the European Union and its predecessors since 1963...
for EU membership.
Greece became the tenth member of the
European CommunitiesThe European Communities were three international organisations that were governed by the same set of institutions...
(subsequently subsumed by the
European UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 Member States, located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community...
) on 1 January 1981, ushering in a period of remarkable and sustained economic growth. Widespread investments in industrial enterprises and heavy infrastructure, as well as funds from the European Union and growing revenues from tourism, shipping and a fast-growing service sector have raised the country's standard of living to unprecedented levels. The country adopted the
EuroThe euro is the official currency of 16 of the 27 Member States of the European Union . The states, known collectively as the Eurozone, are Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain...
in 2001 and successfully hosted the
2004 Olympic GamesThe 2004 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad, was a premier international multi-sport event held in Athens, Greece from August 13 to August 29, 2004 with the motto Welcome Home. 10,625 athletes competed, some 600 more than expected, accompanied by 5,501 team...
in
AthensAthens , the capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the world's oldest cities, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
.
Government and politics
Greece is a
parliamentary republicA parliamentary republic or parliamentary constitutional republic is a type of republic which operates under a parliamentary system of government .- The Power of Parliament :In contrast to republics operating...
. The nominal
head of stateHead of state is the generic term for the individual or collective office that serves as the chief public representative of a monarchy, republic, federation, commonwealth or other kind of state...
is the
President of the RepublicThe President of the Hellenic Republic , colloquially referred to in English as the President of Greece, is the elected head of state of Greece. The incumbent is Dr Karolos Papoulias.-Powers:...
, who is elected by the
ParliamentThe Hellenic Parliament is the Parliament of Greece, located in the Parliament House , overlooking Syntagma Square in Athens, Greece...
for a five-year term. The current
ConstitutionThe Constitution of Greece , was created by the Fifth Revisional Parliament of the Hellenes and entered into force in 1975. It has been revised twice since, in 1986 and in 2001. The Constitutional history of Greece goes back to the Greek War of Independence, during which the first three...
was drawn up and adopted by the Fifth Revisionary Parliament of the Hellenes and entered into force in 1975 after the fall of the
military junta of 1967–1974The Greek military junta of 1967–1974, alternatively "The Regime of the Colonels" , or in Greece "The Junta", and "The Seven Years" are terms used to refer to a series of right-wing military governments that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974...
. It has been revised twice since, in 1986 and in
2001The Amendment of 2001 constituted the most important amendment of the Constitution of 1974. The Amendment of 1986 was much more limited, as it led to the modification of just a few articles concerning the President's powers....
. The Constitution, which consists of 120 articles, provides for a
separation of powersThe separation of powers, also known as trias politica, is a model for the governance of democratic states. The model was first developed in ancient Greece and came into widespread use by the Roman Republic as part of the uncodified Constitution of the Roman Republic...
into executive, legislative, and judicial branches, and grants extensive specific guarantees (further reinforced in 2001) of
civil libertiesCivil liberties are rights in Freedom that protect an individual from the government of the nation in which they reside. Civil liberties set limits on government so that its members cannot abuse their power and interfere unduly with the lives of private citizens.Common civil liberties include the...
and
social rightsEconomic, social and cultural rights are socio-economic human rights; compare with civil and political rights. Economic, social and cultural rights are included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and elaborated upon in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights...
.
Women's suffrageWomen's suffrage is the right of women to vote, and historically includes the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending suffrage to women. The movement's modern origins lie in France in the 18th century. Of currently existing independent countries, New Zealand was the first to give...
was guaranteed with a 1952 Constitutional amendment.
According to the Constitution, executive power is exercised by the President of the Republic and the
GovernmentThe cabinet of Greece, officially called the Ministerial Council comprises the heads of the ministries. Ministers are appointed by the President on the advice of the Prime Minister...
. From the
Constitutional amendment of 1986The Greek Constitutional amendment of 1986 was based on the previously increased responsibilities of the President of the Republic. Despite the fact that the "increased" responsibilities of the President of the Republic were never exercised until 1986, by virtue of their mere existence they...
the President's duties were curtailed to a significant extent, and they are now largely ceremonial; most political power thus lies in the hands of the Prime Minister. The position of
Prime MinisterThe Prime Minister of Greece , officially the Prime Minister of the Hellenic Republic , is the head of government of the Hellenic Republic and the leader of the Greek cabinet. The current Prime Minister is George Papandreou, leader of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement party...
, Greece's
head of governmentHead of government is the chief officer of the executive branch of a government, often presiding over a cabinet. In a parliamentary system, the head of government is often styled Prime Minister, President of the Government, Premier, etc...
, belongs to the
current leader of the
political party that can obtain a vote of confidence by the Parliament. The President of the Republic formally appoints the Prime Minister and, on his recommendation, appoints and dismisses the other members of the Cabinet.
Legislative power is exercised by a 300-member elective
unicameral ParliamentUnicameralism is the practice of having only one legislative or parliamentary chamber. Many countries with unicameral legislatures are often small and homogeneous unitary states and consider an upper house or second chamber unnecessary.-Concept:...
. Statutes passed by the Parliament are promulgated by the President of the Republic. Parliamentary elections are held every four years, but the President of the Republic is obliged to dissolve the Parliament earlier on the proposal of the Cabinet, in view of dealing with a national issue of exceptional importance. The President is also obliged to dissolve the Parliament earlier, if the opposition manages to pass a
motion of no confidenceA motion of no confidence is a parliamentary motion traditionally put before a parliament by the opposition in the hope of defeating or weakening a government, or, rarely by an erstwhile supporter who has lost confidence in the government...
.
The
JudiciaryIn Greece, Constitution firmly established the independence of the justice system.According to section E';-The two branches of the Greek judicial system:...
is independent of the executive and the legislature and comprises three Supreme Courts: the
Court of CassationThe Court of Cassation is the Supreme Court of Greece for civil and criminal law. The Court of Cassation's decisions are irrevocable. If the Court of Cassation concludes that a lower court violated the law or the principles of the procedure, then it can order the rehearing of the case by the lower...
(Άρειος Πάγος), the
Council of StateIn Greece, the Council of State is, at the same time, an administrative organ and the Supreme Administrative Court...
(Συμβούλιο της Επικρατείας) and the
Court of AuditorsIn Greece, the Chamber of Accounts is both an administrative organ and a Supreme Administrative Court with a special jurisdiction...
(Ελεγκτικό Συνέδριο). The Judiciary system is also composed of civil courts, which judge civil and penal cases and administrative courts, which judge disputes between the citizens and the Greek administrative authorities.
Political parties
Since the restoration of democracy, the Greek
two-party systemA two-party system is a form of party system where two major political parties dominate voting in nearly all elections, at every level. As a result, all, or nearly all, elected offices end up being held by candidates endorsed by one of the two major parties...
is dominated by the liberal-conservative
New DemocracyNew Democracy is the main centre-right political party and one of the two major parties in Greece. It was founded in 1974 by Konstantinos Karamanlis and formed the first cabinet of the Third Hellenic Republic...
(ND) and the social-democratic
Panhellenic Socialist MovementThe Panhellenic Socialist Movement, better known as PASOK , is a Greek centre-left political party. In 1981 PASOK formed the first socialist government in Greece's history, and subsequently governed the country for most of the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s...
(PASOK). Other significant parties include the
Communist Party of GreeceThe Communist Party of Greece , better known by its acronym, ΚΚΕ , is the oldest party in the Greek political scene.- Foundation :...
(KKE), the
Coalition of the Radical LeftThe Coalition of the Radical Left , commonly known by its Greek abbreviation ΣΥΡΙΖΑ , is a coalition of left political parties in Greece...
(SYRIZA) and the
Popular Orthodox RallyThe Popular Orthodox Rally or The People's Orthodox Rally , often abbreviated to ΛΑ.Ο.Σ. as a pun on the Greek word for people, is a Greek right-wing populist and nationalist political party, founded and led by journalist Georgios Karatzaferis...
(LAOS). The current prime minister is George Papandreou, president of the PASOK and son of the late
Andreas PapandreouAndreas Papandreou was a Greek economist, a socialist politician and a dominant figure in Greek politics. He served two terms as Prime Minister of Greece...
, who on
October 4, 2009Parliamentary elections were held in Greece on 4 October 2009. An election was not required until September 2011.On 2 September Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis announced he would request President Karolos Papoulias to dissolve Parliament and call an election...
, with a majority in the Parliament of 160 out of 300 seats.
Peripheries and prefectures
Administratively, Greece consists of thirteen peripheries subdivided into a total of fifty-one prefectures . There is also one
autonomous areaAn autonomous area is an area of a country that has a degree of autonomy, or freedom from an external authority. Typically it is either geographically distinct from the country or is populated by a national minority. Countries that include autonomous areas are often federacies...
,
Mount AthosMount Athos is a mountain on the peninsula of the same name in Macedonia, of northern Greece, called in Greek Agion Oros , or in English, "Holy Mountain". In Classical times, the peninsula was called Aktí...
, which borders the periphery of
Central MacedoniaCentral Macedonia is one of the thirteen peripheries of Greece, consisting of the central part of the region of Macedonia. It is divided into the prefectures of Chalkidiki, Imathia, Kilkis, Pella, Pieria, Serres, and Thessaloniki...
.
| Map | Number | PeripheryThe peripheries are the official regional administrative divisions of Greece. There are 13 peripheries , which are further subdivided into 54 prefectures....
| Capital | AreaArea is a quantity expressing the two-dimensional size of a defined part of a surface, typically a region bounded by a closed curve. The term surface area refers to the total area of the exposed surface of a 3-dimensional solid, such as the sum of the areas of the exposed sides of a polyhedron...
| PopulationIn biology, a population is the collection of inter-breeding organisms of a particular species; in sociology, a collection of human beings. Individuals within a population share a factor may be reduced by statistical means, but such a generalization may be too vague to imply anything...
|
|---|
 |
| 1 |
AtticaAttica is a periphery in Greece, containing Athens, the capital of Greece. Attica is subdivided into the prefectures of Athens, Piraeus, East Attica and West Attica.-Overview:...
|
AthensAthens , the capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the world's oldest cities, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
|
3,808 km² |
3,761,810 |
| 2 |
Central GreeceThe periphery of Continental Greece or Central Greece is one of the thirteen peripheries of Greece. It is divided into the prefectures of Euboea, Evrytania, Phocis, Phthiotis, and Boeotia....
|
LamiaLamia is a city in central Greece. The city has a continuous history since Antiquity, and is today the capital of the prefecture of Phthiotis and periphery of Central Greece .-Name:...
|
15,549 km² |
605,329 |
| 3 |
Central MacedoniaCentral Macedonia is one of the thirteen peripheries of Greece, consisting of the central part of the region of Macedonia. It is divided into the prefectures of Chalkidiki, Imathia, Kilkis, Pella, Pieria, Serres, and Thessaloniki...
|
ThessalonikiThessaloniki , Thessalonica, or Salonica is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the Greek region of Macedonia. It is honorarily called the Συμπρωτεύουσα Symprotevousa of Greece, as it was once called the συμβασιλεύουσα symvasilevousa of the Byzantine Empire...
|
18,811 km² |
1,871,952 |
| 4 |
CreteCrete is the largest of the Greek islands and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km²...
|
HeraklionHeraklion or Iraklion , is the largest city and capital of Crete. It is also the fourth largest city in Greece. Its name is also spelled Herakleion, a transliteration of the ancient Greek and Katharevousa name, , or Iraklio, among other variants...
|
8,259 km² |
601,131 |
| 5 |
East Macedonia and ThraceEast Macedonia and Thrace is one of the thirteen peripheries of Greece, consisting of the eastern part of the region of Macedonia along with the region of Thrace...
|
Komotini Komotini or Komotene , is a city in north-eastern Greece. It is the capital of the periphery of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace and the Rhodope Prefecture. It is also the administrative center of the Rhodope-Evros super-prefecture. The city is home to the Democritus University of Thrace, founded in 1973...
|
14,157 km² |
611,067 |
| 6 |
EpirusEpirus , is a periphery in northwestern Greece. It borders the peripheries of West Macedonia and Thessaly to the east, West Greece to the south, the Ionian Sea and the Ionian Islands to the west and Albania to the north. The province has an area of about 9,200 km²...
|
IoanninaIoannina is a city of Epirus, north-western Greece, with a metropolitan population of approximately 100,000, and lies at an elevation of 600 metres above sea level. It is the capital of Ioannina Prefecture and of Epirus, lying on the western side of lake Pamvotis...
|
9,203 km² |
353,820 |
| 7 |
Ionian IslandsThe Ionian Islands are a group of islands in Greece. They are traditionally called "Eptanisa", i.e...
|
CorfuCorfu is a city in north-western Greece. It is the capital and main town of the island and prefecture of Corfu. The city is a major tourist attraction, and has played an important role since the 8th century. The city has become known as a Kastropolis because of its three castles...
|
2,307 km² |
212,984 |
| 8 |
North AegeanNorth Aegean is one of the thirteen peripheries of Greece. It consists of the prefectures of Chios, Lesbos and Samos.-Major communities:*Chíos *Kalloní *Karlóvasi *Mýrina *Mytilíni *Omiroúpoli...
|
Mytilene Mytilene is the capital city of Lesbos, a Greek island in the Aegean Sea, and capital of Lesbos Prefecture and the Northern Aegean region. It is built on the southeast edge of the island...
|
3,836 km² |
206,121 |
| 9 |
PeloponnesePeloponnese , is a periphery in southern Greece. It borders the periphery of West Greece to the north and that of Attica to the north-east. The province has an area of about 15,490 km²...
|
KalamataKalamata is the second-largest city of the Peloponnese in southern Greece. The capital and chief port of the Messenia prefecture, it lies along the Nedon River at the head of the Messenian Gulf...
|
15,490 km² |
638,942 |
| 10 |
South AegeanSouth Aegean is one of the thirteen peripheries of Greece. It consists of the Cyclades and Dodecanese islands in the South Aegean Sea. The capital of the periphery is situated in Ermoupoli, Syros island while a suboffice is operating in Rhodes, the economical, social and tourism centre of the...
|
ErmoupoliSee also Hermopolis for other usesErmoupoli , also known with its formal name as Ermoupolis , is a city in Greece...
|
5,286 km² |
302,686 |
| 11 |
ThessalyThessaly is one of the 13 peripheries of Greece, and is further sub-divided into 4 prefectures. The capital of the periphery and traditional geographical region is Larissa. Together with the regions of Macedonia and Thrace, it is often referred to unofficially as Northern Greece...
|
Larissa Larissa is a city and the capital of the Thessaly periphery of Greece, and capital of the Larissa Prefecture. It is a principal agricultural centre and a national transportation hub, linked by rail with the port of Volos and with Thessaloniki and Athens...
|
14.037 km² |
753,888 |
| 12 |
West GreeceWest Greece is one of the thirteen peripheries of Greece. It is divided into the prefectures of Achaea, Aetolia-Acarnania and Ilia.Its climate has hot summers and mild winters. Sunny days dominate during the summer months in areas within the beaches and partially cloudy and rainy in the mountains...
|
PatrasPatras is Greece's third largest urban centre and the capital of the prefecture of Achaea, located in northern Peloponnese, 215 kilometers west of Athens...
|
11,350 km² |
740,506 |
| 13 |
West MacedoniaWest Macedonia is one of the thirteen peripheries of Greece, consisting of the western part of the region of Macedonia. It is divided into the prefectures of Florina, Grevena, Kastoria, and Kozani.-Geography:...
|
KozaniKozani is a city in northern Greece, capital of Kozani Prefecture and of West Macedonia periphery. It is located in the western part of Macedonia, in the northern part of the Aliakmonas river valley...
|
9,451 km² |
301,522 |
| - |
Mount AthosMount Athos is a mountain on the peninsula of the same name in Macedonia, of northern Greece, called in Greek Agion Oros , or in English, "Holy Mountain". In Classical times, the peninsula was called Aktí...
(Autonomous) |
Karyes Karyes is a settlement in Mount Athos. It is the seat of the clerical and secular administration of the Athonite monastic state. The 2001 Greek census reported a population of 233 inhabitants...
|
390 km² |
2,262 |
Foreign relations
Greece is a member of the
European UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 Member States, located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community...
since 1981, a member of the
Economic and Monetary Union of the European UnionA monetary union is an arrangement where several countries have agreed to share a single currency amongst themselves. The European Economic and Monetary Union consists of three stages coordinating economic policy, achieving economic convergence and culminating with the adoption of the euro, the...
since 2001,
NATOThe North Atlantic Treaty Organization ); ), also called "the Atlantic Alliance", is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on April 4, 1949...
since 1952, the
OECDThe Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is an international organisation of 30 countries that accept the principles of representative democracy and free-market economy...
since 1961, the
WEUThe Western European Union is a largely dormant intergovernmental defence and security organisation, established on the basis of the Treaty of Brussels of 1948, with the accession of West Germany and Italy in 1954. The WEU headquarters are in Brussels...
since 1995, a founding member of
Black Sea Economic CooperationOn 25 June 1992, the Heads of State and Government of eleven countries signed in Istanbul the Summit Declaration and the Bosporus Statement giving birth to the Black Sea Economic Cooperation ...
and a member of
ESA|owner = |headquarters = Paris|spaceport = Guiana Space Centre|image = ESA LOGO.svg|size = 240px|acronym = ESA|established = 1975|administrator = Jean-Jacques Dordain...
since 2005.
Prominent issues in Greek foreign policy include the enduring dispute over Cyprus, differences with Turkey over the
AegeanThe term Aegean dispute refers to a set of interrelated controversial issues between Greece and Turkey over sovereignty and related rights in the area of the Aegean Sea. This set of conflicts has had a large effect on Greek-Turkish relations since the 1970s. It has twice led to crises coming close...
sea, as well as the
naming disputeThe Macedonia naming dispute refers to the disagreement over the use of the name Macedonia between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia. Greece opposes the post-1991 constitutional name of its northern neighbour, citing the lack of disambiguation between it and the adjacent Greek region of Macedonia...
with the
Republic of MacedoniaMacedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country in the central Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
, which Greece refers to internationally by the provisional reference "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia".
Geography
{| style="float:right;" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="1"
|-
|
Greece , officially the
Hellenic Republic (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία,
Ellīnikī́ Dīmokratía, ), is a
countryIn geography, a country is a geographical region. The term is often applied to a political division or the territory of a state, or to a smaller, or former, political division of a geographical region...
in southeastern Europe, situated on the southern end of the
Balkan PeninsulaThe Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
.
The country has borders with
AlbaniaAlbania , officially the Republic of Albania , is a Mediterranean country in South Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Montenegro to the north, Kosovo to the northeast, Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south-east...
, the
Republic of MacedoniaMacedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country in the central Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
and
BulgariaBulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a country in the Balkans in south-eastern Europe. Bulgaria borders five other countries: Romania to the north , Serbia and the Republic of Macedonia to the west, and Greece and Turkey to the south...
to the north, and
TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey
, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe...
to the east. The
Aegean SeaThe Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey respectively. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...
lies to the east and south of mainland Greece, while the
Ionian SeaThe Ionian Sea is an arm of the Mediterranean Sea, south of the Adriatic Sea. It is bounded by southern Italy including Calabria, Sicily and the Salento peninsula to the west, and by southwestern Albania, including Saranda and Himara, and a large number of Greek islands, including Corfu, Zante,...
lies to the west. Both parts of the Eastern
MediterraneanThe Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by Africa, and on the east by the Levant. The sea is technically a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it...
basin feature a vast number of
islands, islets and rock islands.
Modern Greece traces its roots to the civilization of
ancient GreeceAncient Greece is the civilisation belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. It is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the...
, generally considered to be the cradle of
Western civilizationWestern culture refers to cultures of European origin.The term "Western culture" is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and technologies...
. As such, it is the birthplace of
democracyDemocracy is a system of government in which either the actual governing is carried out by the people governed , or the power to do so is granted by them...
,
Western philosophyWestern philosophy is the philosophical thought and work of the Western or Occidental world, as distinct from Eastern or Oriental philosophies and the varieties of indigenous philosophies....
, the
Olympic GamesThe Olympic Games are a major international event of summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes compete in a wide variety of events. The Games are currently held every two years, with Summer and Winter Olympic Games alternating. Originally, the ancient Olympic Games were held in...
,
Western literatureWestern literature refers to the literature written in the languages of Europe, including the ones belonging to the Indo-European language family as well as several geographically or historically related languages such as Basque, Hungarian, and so forth...
and
historiographyHistoriography is the history of history, the aspect of history and of semiotics that considers how knowledge of the past, either recent or distant, is obtained and transmitted...
,
political sciencePolitical science is a social science concerned with the theory and practice of politics and the description and analysis of political systems and political behavior. It is often described as the pragmatic application of the art and science of politics defined as "who gets what, when and how",...
, major scientific and
mathematicalGreek mathematics, as that term is used in this article, is the mathematics written in Greek, developed from the 6th century BC to the 5th century AD around the Eastern shores of the Mediterranean. The word "mathematics" itself derives from the ancient Greek μάθημα , meaning "subject of...
principles, and Western
dramaDrama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a collective...
, including both
tragedyTragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that, paradoxically, offers its audience pleasure...
and
comedyComedy as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse generally intended to amuse, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in Ancient Greece...
.
Greece is a
developed countryThe term developed country is used to describe countries that have a high level of development according to some criteria. Which criteria, and which countries are classified as being developed, is a contentious issue and there is fierce debate about this. Economic criteria have tended to dominate...
, a member of the
European UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 Member States, located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community...
since 1981, a member of the
Economic and Monetary Union of the European UnionA monetary union is an arrangement where several countries have agreed to share a single currency amongst themselves. The European Economic and Monetary Union consists of three stages coordinating economic policy, achieving economic convergence and culminating with the adoption of the euro, the...
since 2001,
NATOThe North Atlantic Treaty Organization ); ), also called "the Atlantic Alliance", is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on April 4, 1949...
since 1952, the
OECDThe Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is an international organisation of 30 countries that accept the principles of representative democracy and free-market economy...
since 1961, the
WEUThe Western European Union is a largely dormant intergovernmental defence and security organisation, established on the basis of the Treaty of Brussels of 1948, with the accession of West Germany and Italy in 1954. The WEU headquarters are in Brussels...
since 1995, a founding member of the
Black Sea Economic CooperationOn 25 June 1992, the Heads of State and Government of eleven countries signed in Istanbul the Summit Declaration and the Bosporus Statement giving birth to the Black Sea Economic Cooperation ...
and a member of
ESA|owner = |headquarters = Paris|spaceport = Guiana Space Centre|image = ESA LOGO.svg|size = 240px|acronym = ESA|established = 1975|administrator = Jean-Jacques Dordain...
since 2005.
AthensAthens , the capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the world's oldest cities, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
is the capital;
ThessalonikiThessaloniki , Thessalonica, or Salonica is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the Greek region of Macedonia. It is honorarily called the Συμπρωτεύουσα Symprotevousa of Greece, as it was once called the συμβασιλεύουσα symvasilevousa of the Byzantine Empire...
,
PatrasPatras is Greece's third largest urban centre and the capital of the prefecture of Achaea, located in northern Peloponnese, 215 kilometers west of Athens...
,
HeraklionHeraklion or Iraklion , is the largest city and capital of Crete. It is also the fourth largest city in Greece. Its name is also spelled Herakleion, a transliteration of the ancient Greek and Katharevousa name, , or Iraklio, among other variants...
,
LarissaLarissa is a city and the capital of the Thessaly periphery of Greece, and capital of the Larissa Prefecture. It is a principal agricultural centre and a national transportation hub, linked by rail with the port of Volos and with Thessaloniki and Athens...
,
VolosVolos is a coastal port city situated at the center of the Greek mainland, about 326 km north from Athens and 215 km south from Thessaloniki...
,
IoanninaIoannina is a city of Epirus, north-western Greece, with a metropolitan population of approximately 100,000, and lies at an elevation of 600 metres above sea level. It is the capital of Ioannina Prefecture and of Epirus, lying on the western side of lake Pamvotis...
,
KavalaKavala , is the second largest city in northern Greece, the principal seaport of eastern Macedonia and the capital of Kavala prefecture. It is situated on the Bay of Kavala, across from the island of Thasos.-Antiquity:...
, Rhodes and
SerresSerres is a city in Greece, seat of the Serres prefecture.Serres may also refer to:Places:* Serres, Germany, a part of Wiernsheim in Baden-WürttembergIn France:* Serres, Aude in the Aude département...
are some of the country's other major cities.
History
Greece was the first area in Europe where advanced early civilizations emerged, beginning with the
Minoan civilizationThe Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age civilization which arose on the island of Crete. The Minoan culture flourished from approximately 2700 to 1450 BC; afterwards, Mycenaean Greek culture became dominant at Minoan sites in Crete...
in Crete and then the
MyceneanMycenae , is an archaeological site in Greece, located about 90 km south-west of Athens, in the north-eastern Peloponnese. Argos is 6 km to the south; Corinth, 48 km to the north...
civilization on the mainland. Later, city-states emerged across the Greek peninsula and spread to the shores of
Black Seaur a loser!The Black Sea is an inland sea bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas and various straits. The Bosporus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects it to...
, South Italy and Asia Minor reaching great levels of
prosperityWealth is an abundance of valuable resources or material possessions. The word is derived from the old English wela, which is from an Indo-European word stem...
that resulted in an unprecedented cultural boom, expressed in
architectureThe Parthenon is a temple of the Greek goddess Athena whom the people of Athens considered their protector. It was built in the 5th century BC on the Athenian Acropolis. It is the most important surviving building of Classical Greece, generally considered to be the culmination of the development...
,
dramaDrama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a collective...
,
scienceScience is in its broadest sense to any systematic knowledge-base or prescriptive practice that is capable of resulting in a prediction or predictable type of outcome...
and
philosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
, and nurtured in
AthensThe city of Athens during classical antiquity was a notable polis of Attica, Greece, leading the Delian League in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta and the Peloponnesian League. Athenian democracy was established in 508 BC under Cleisthenes following the tyranny of Hippias...
under a
democraticDemocracy is a system of government in which either the actual governing is carried out by the people governed , or the power to do so is granted by them...
environment.
AthensAthens , the capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the world's oldest cities, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
and
SpartaSparta was a city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the River Eurotas in the southern part of the Peloponnese. From c. 650 BC it rose to become the dominant military power in the region and as such was recognized as the overall leader of the combined Greek forces during the Greco-Persian Wars...
led the way in repelling the
Persian EmpireThe Achaemenid Empire or Persian Empire was the successor state of the Median Empire, ruling over significant portions of what would become Greater Iran. The Persian and the Median Empire taken together are also known as the Medo-Persian Empire, succeeding the Neo-Assyrian Empire...
in a series of
battlesFor other Persian wars, see Roman-Persian Wars, Arab-Persian Wars, Persian Gulf Wars, and Military history of Iran.The Greco-Persian Wars , were a series of conflicts between the Persian Empire and city-states of the Hellenic world that started in 499 BC and lasted until 450 BC...
. Both were later overshadowed by
ThebesThebes was a Boeotian city-state , situated to the north of the Cithaeron range, which divides Boeotia from Attica, and on the southern edge of the Boeotian plain...
and eventually
MacedonMacedonia or Macedon was an ancient kingdom, centered in the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, bordered by Epirus to the west, Paionia to the north, the region of Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south...
, with the latter under the guidance of
Alexander the GreatAlexander III of Macedon, popularly known as Alexander the Great , was an Ancient Greek king of Macedon who created one of the largest empires in ancient history...
uniting and leading the Greek world to victory over the Persians, to presage the Hellenistic era, itself brought only partially to a close two centuries later with the establishment of
RomanThe Roman Republic was the phase of the ancient Roman civilization characterized by a republican form of government. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, c...
rule over Greek lands in 146 BC. Many Greeks migrated to
AlexandriaAlexandria , with a population of 4.1 million, is the second-largest city in Egypt, and is the country's largest seaport, serving about 80% of Egypt's imports and exports...
,
AntiochAntioch on the Orontes was an ancient city on the eastern side of the Orontes River...
,
SeleuciaSeleucia was the first capital of the Seleucid Empire, and one of the great cities of antiquity standing in Mesopotamia, on the Tigris River.Seleucia may refer to:...
and the many other new Hellenistic cities in
AsiaThe Seleucid Empire was a Hellenistic empire, i.e. a successor state of Alexander the Great's empire. The Seleucid Empire was centered in the near East and at the height of its power included central Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Persia, today's Turkmenistan, Pamir and parts of Pakistan...
and
AfricaThe Ptolemaic Kingdom in and around Egypt began following Alexander the Great's conquest in 332 BC and ended with the death of Cleopatra VII and the Roman conquest in 30 BC. It was founded when Ptolemy I Soter declared himself Pharaoh of Egypt, creating a powerful Hellenistic state stretching from...
founded in Alexander's wake.
The subsequent mixture of
RomanAncient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
and Hellenic cultures took form in the establishment of the
Byzantine EmpireThe Byzantine Empire or Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on the capital of Constantinople, and ruled by Emperors in direct and de jure succession to the ancient Roman Emperors...
in 330 AD around
ConstantinopleConstantinople was the imperial capital of the Roman Empire , the Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire , the Latin Empire , and the Ottoman Empire...
. Byzantium remained a major cultural and military power for the next 1,123 years, until the
Fall of ConstantinopleThe Fall of Constantinople was the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire which occurred after a siege laid by the Ottoman Empire, under the command of Sultan Mehmed II. The siege lasted from Thursday, 5 April, 1453 until Tuesday, 29 May, 1453 , when the city fell to the Ottomans...
to the
Ottoman TurksThe Ottoman Turks were the subdivision of the Ottoman Muslim Millet that dominated the ruling class of the Ottoman Empire. Reliable information about the early history of the Ottomans is scarce. According to some sources , the leader of the Kayi tribe of the Oguz Turks, Ertugrul, left Persia in...
in 1453. On the eve of the Ottoman conquest, much of the Greek intelligentsia migrated to Italy and other parts of Europe not under Ottoman rule, playing a significant role in the
RenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe...
through the transmission of
ancient GreekAncient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic , Classical , and Hellenistic periods of ancient Greece and the ancient world. It is predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
works to
Western EuropeWestern Europe is the collection of countries in the westernmost region of Europe, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a cultural entity—the region lying west of Central Europe...
. Nevertheless, the
Ottoman milletMillet is an Ottoman Turkish term for a confessional community in the Ottoman Empire. In the 19th century, with the Tanzimat reforms, the term started to refer to legally protected religious minority groups, other than the ruling Sunni. Millet comes from the Arabic word millah and literally means...
system contributed to the cohesion of the Orthodox Greeks by segregating the various peoples within the empire based on religion, as the latter played an integral role in the formation of modern Greek identity.
After the
Greek War of IndependenceThe Greek War of Independence was a successful war of independence waged by the Greek revolutionaries between 1821 and 1829, with later assistance from several European powers, against the Ottoman Empire, who were assisted by their vassals, the Egyptian Khedivate and partly the Vilayet of...
, successfully waged against the
Ottoman EmpireThe Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299 to November 1, 1922 The Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State (Ottoman Turkish: دَوْلَتِ عَلِیَّهِ عُثْمَانِیَّه Dawlet-il ʿAliyyat-il ʿOs̠māniyye, Modern Turkish:...
from 1821 to 1829, the nascent Greek state was finally recognized under the
London Protocol-1829:On 22 March 1829, a conference of ambassadors of the three protecting powers established the borders of Greece, which was to encompass all lands south of the line running from the Ambracian Gulf to the Pagasetic Gulf, including Negroponte and the Cyclades but not Crete...
. In 1827,
Ioannis KapodistriasCount Ioannis Antonios Kapodistrias was a Greek diplomat of the Russian Empire and later first head of state of independent Greece.-Background and early career:Ioannis Kapodistrias was born in Corfu, Count Ioannis Antonios Kapodistrias ( – Komis Ioannis Antonios Kapodistrias, in , Conte...
, from
Ionian IslandsThe Ionian Islands are a group of islands in Greece. They are traditionally called "Eptanisa", i.e...
, was chosen as the first governor of the new Republic. However, following his assassination, the Great Powers installed a
monarchyThe Kingdom of Greece was a state established in 1832 in the Convention of London by the Great Powers...
under
OttoOtto, King of Greece was made the first modern king of Greece in 1832 under the Convention of London, whereby Greece became a new independent kingdom under the protection of the Great Powers .The second son of the philhellene King Ludwig I of Bavaria, Otto ascended the...
, of the Bavarian House of Wittelsbach. In 1843, an uprising forced the King to grant a constitution and a representative assembly. Due to his unimpaired authoritarian rule, he was eventually dethroned in 1863 and replaced by Prince Vilhelm (William) of Denmark, who took the name
George IGeorge I, King of the Hellenes was King of Greece from 1863 to 1913. Originally a Danish prince, George was only 17 years old when he was elected King by the Greek National Assembly, which had deposed the former King Otto...
and brought with him the
Ionian IslandsThe Ionian Islands are a group of islands in Greece. They are traditionally called "Eptanisa", i.e...
as a coronation gift from
BritainThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
. In 1877,
Charilaos TrikoupisCharilaos Trikoupis was a Greek politician who served as a Prime Minister of Greece seven times from 1875 until 1895....
, who is attributed with the significant improvement of the country's infrastructure, curbed the power of the monarchy to interfere in the assembly by issuing the rule of vote of confidence to any potential
prime ministerA prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. The position is usually held by, but need not always be held by, a politician. In many systems, the prime minister selects and can dismiss other members of the cabinet, and...
.
As a result of the
Balkan WarsThe Balkan Wars were two wars in South-eastern Europe in 1912–1913. The First Balkan War broke out on 8 October 1912 when Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro and Serbia , having large parts of their ethnic populations under Ottoman sovereignty, attacked the Ottoman Empire, terminating its five-century...
, Greece successfully increased the extent of her territory and population, a challenging context both socially and economically. In the following years, the struggle between
King Constantine IConstantine I, King of the Hellenes was King of Greece from 1913 to 1917 and from 1920 to 1922. He was Commander-in-Chief of the Hellenic Army during the unsuccessful Greco-Turkish War of 1897 and led the Greek forces during the successful Balkan Wars of 1912-1913, in which Greece captured...
and charismatic Prime Minister
Eleftherios VenizelosEleftherios Venizelos was an eminent Greek revolutionary, a prominent and illustrious statesman as well as a charismatic leader in the early 20th century...
over the country's foreign policy on the eve of
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
dominated the country's political scene, and divided the country into two opposed groups.
In the aftermath of WWI, Greece
foughtThe Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922, also called the War in Asia Minor or the Greek campaign of the Turkish War of Independence or The Asia Minor Catastrophe, was a series of military events occurring during the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire after World War I between May 1919 and October 1922...
against Turkish nationalists led by
Mustafa KemalMustafa Kemal Atatürk was a Turkish army officer, revolutionary statesman, and founder of the Republic of Turkey as well as its first President....
, a war which resulted in a massive population exchange between the two countries under the
Treaty of LausanneThe Treaty of Lausanne was a peace treaty signed in Lausanne, Switzerland, that settled the Anatolian and East Thracian parts of the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire by annulment of the Treaty of Sèvres that was signed by the Constantinople-based Ottoman government; as the consequence of the...
. According to various sources, several hundred thousand
Pontic GreeksThe Pontian Greeks are an ethnic group consisting of Greeks from the shores of the Black Sea and Pontus...
died during this period. Instability and successive
coups d'étatA coup d'état , or coup for short, is the sudden unconstitutional deposition of a legitimate government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another, either civil or military...
marked the following era, which was overshadowed by the massive task of incorporating 1.5 million
Greek refugeesGreek refugees is a collective term used to refer to the Greeks from Asia Minor who were evacuated or relocated in Greece following the Treaty of Lausanne and the Population exchange between Greece and Turkey...
from Asia Minor into Greek society. The Greek population in
IstanbulIstanbul is the largest city in Turkey and fifth largest city proper in the world with a population of 12.6 million. Istanbul is also a megacity, as well as the cultural and financial centre of Turkey. The city covers 39 districts of the Istanbul province...
had shrunk from 300,000 at the turn of the century to around 3,000 in the city today. On 28 October 1940 Fascist
ItalyThe Kingdom of Italy was a state forged in 1861 by the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia which is its legal predecessor State, and with the decisive help of France and Great Britain...
demanded the surrender of Greece, but Greek dictator
Ioannis MetaxasIoannis Metaxas was a Greek General, appointed Prime Minister of Greece between April-August 1936 and dictator during the 4th of August Regime, from 1936 until his death in 1941.- Military career :...
refused and in the following
Greco-Italian WarThe Greco-Italian War was a conflict between Italy and Greece which lasted from 28 October 1940 to 23 April 1941. It marked the beginning of the Balkans Campaign of World War II...
, Greece repelled Italian forces into
AlbaniaAlbania , officially the Republic of Albania , is a Mediterranean country in South Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Montenegro to the north, Kosovo to the northeast, Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south-east...
, giving the
AlliesThe Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . The involvement of the Allies in World War II was either natural and inevitable they were invaded or under the direct threat of invasion by the Axis or compelled by concerns that the Axis powers...
their first victory over
AxisThe Axis powers comprised the countries that were opposed to the Allies during World War II. The three major Axis powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan—were part of a military alliance on the signing of the Tripartite Pact in September 1940, which officially founded the Axis powers...
forces on land. The country would eventually fall to urgently dispatched German forces during the
Battle of GreeceThe Battle of Greece was a World War II battle that occurred on the Greek mainland and in southern Albania. The battle was fought between the Allied and Axis forces...
. The German occupiers nevertheless met serious challenges from the
Greek ResistanceThe Greek Resistance is the blanket term for a number of armed and unarmed groups from across the political spectrum that resisted the Axis Occupation of Greece in the period 1941-1944, during the Second World War.-Origins:...
. Over 100,000 civilians died from starvation during the winter of 1941–42. In 1943 virtually the entire
JewishThere have been organized Jewish communities in Greece for more than two thousand years. The oldest and the most characteristic Jewish group that has inhabited Greece are the Romaniotes, also known as "Greek Jews"...
population was deported to Nazi extermination camps.
After liberation, Greece experienced a bitter
civil warThe Greek Civil War was fought from 1946 to 1949 between the Greek governmental army, backed by the United Kingdom, United States, and the Democratic Army of Greece , the military branch of the Greek Communist Party , backed by Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Albania...
between
communistCommunism is a socioeconomic structure and political ideology that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless society based on common ownership and control of the means of production and property in general. Karl Marx posited that communism would be the final stage in human...
and anticommunist forces, which led to economic devastation and severe social tensions between
rightistsIn politics, right-wing, political right, rightist and the Right are terms used to describe a number of positions and ideologies. They are most commonly used to refer to support for preserving traditional or cultural values and customs or for maintaining some form of social hierarchy or private...
and largely communist
leftistsIn politics, left-wing, political left, leftist and the Left are terms used to describe a number of positions and ideologies. They are most commonly used to refer to support for changing traditional social orders or for creating a more egalitarian distribution of wealth and privilege...
for the next 30 years. The next 20 years were characterized by marginalisation of the left in the political and social spheres but also by
rapid economic growthThe term Greek economic miracle has been used to describe the impressive rate of economic and social development in Greece from the early 1950s to the mid-1970s. Between 1950 and 1973, the country had an average rate of economic growth of 7%, second in the world only to Japan’s during the same...
, propelled in part by the
Marshall PlanThe Marshall Plan was the primary plan of the United States for rebuilding and creating a stronger foundation for the countries of Western Europe, and repelling communism after World War II...
.
King
ConstantineConstantine II, King of the Hellenes was King of Greece from 1964 until deposed in 1973...
's
dismissalThe terms Apostasia or Iouliana or the Royal Coup are used to describe the political crisis in Greece that centred around the resignation, on 15 July 1965, of Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou and the appointment, by King Constantine II, of successive Prime Ministers from Papandreou's own...
of
George PapandreouGeorge Papandreou was a Greek politician who served three terms as Prime Minister of Greece. He was born at Kalentzi, in Achaea in West Greece. As a young man, he became involved in politics as a supporter of the Liberal leader Eleftherios Venizelos, who made him Governor of Chios after the...
's centrist government in July 1965 prompted a prolonged period of political turbulence which culminated in a coup d'état on 21 April 1967 by the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
-backed Regime of the Colonels. The brutal suppression of the
Athens Polytechnic uprisingThe Athens Polytechnic uprising in 1973 was a massive demonstration of popular rejection of the Greek military junta of 1967-1974. The uprising began on November 14, 1973, escalated to an open anti-junta revolt and ended in bloodshed in the early morning of November 17 after a series of events...
on 17 November 1973 sent shockwaves through the regime, and a counter-coup established
BrigadierBrigadier is a military rank, the meaning of which has a considerable variation.-Officer rank:In many countries, especially those formerly part of the former British Empire, a Brigadier is either the highest field rank or most junior General appointment, nominally commanding a brigade...
Dimitrios Ioannidis as dictator. On 20 July 1974, as
TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey
, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe...
invadedThe Turkish invasion of Cyprus, launched on 20 July 1974, was a Turkish military operation in response to a Greek military junta backed coup in Cyprus which had been staged by the Cypriot National Guard whose leaders deposed the Cypriot president and archbishop Makarios III and installed Nikos...
the island of
CyprusCyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country situated in the eastern Mediterranean, south of Turkey and west of Syria and Lebanon....
, the regime collapsed.
Former premier Konstantinos Karamanlis was invited back from
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
where he had lived in self-exile since 1963, marking the beginning of the
MetapolitefsiThe Metapolitefsi was a period in Greek history after the fall of the Greek military junta of 1967–1974 that includes the transitional period from the fall of the dictatorship to the Greek legislative elections of 1974 and the democratic period immediately after these elections.The long...
era. On the 14 August 1974 Greek forces withdrew from the integrated military structure of
NATOThe North Atlantic Treaty Organization ); ), also called "the Atlantic Alliance", is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on April 4, 1949...
in protest at the Turkish occupation of northern Cyprus. The first multiparty
electionsThe first free elections since 1964 and after the end of the Greek military junta of 1967-1974 took place in Greece on November 17, 1974 during the metapolitefsi....
since 1964 were held on the first anniversary of the Polytechnic uprising. A democratic and republican
constitutionThe Constitution of Greece , was created by the Fifth Revisional Parliament of the Hellenes and entered into force in 1975. It has been revised twice since, in 1986 and in 2001. The Constitutional history of Greece goes back to the Greek War of Independence, during which the first three...
was promulgated on 11 June 1975 following a referendum which abolished the monarchy. Meanwhile,
Andreas PapandreouAndreas Papandreou was a Greek economist, a socialist politician and a dominant figure in Greek politics. He served two terms as Prime Minister of Greece...
founded the
Panhellenic Socialist MovementThe Panhellenic Socialist Movement, better known as PASOK , is a Greek centre-left political party. In 1981 PASOK formed the first socialist government in Greece's history, and subsequently governed the country for most of the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s...
(PASOK) in response to Karamanlis's conservative
New DemocracyNew Democracy is the main centre-right political party and one of the two major parties in Greece. It was founded in 1974 by Konstantinos Karamanlis and formed the first cabinet of the Third Hellenic Republic...
party, with the two political formations alternating in government ever since. Greece rejoined NATO in 1980. Traditionally strained relations with neighbouring Turkey improved when successive earthquakes hit both nations in 1999, leading to the lifting of the Greek veto against Turkey's
bidTurkey's application to accede to the European Union was made on 14 April 1987. Turkey has been an associate member of the European Union and its predecessors since 1963...
for EU membership.
Greece became the tenth member of the
European CommunitiesThe European Communities were three international organisations that were governed by the same set of institutions...
(subsequently subsumed by the
European UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 Member States, located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community...
) on 1 January 1981, ushering in a period of remarkable and sustained economic growth. Widespread investments in industrial enterprises and heavy infrastructure, as well as funds from the European Union and growing revenues from tourism, shipping and a fast-growing service sector have raised the country's standard of living to unprecedented levels. The country adopted the
EuroThe euro is the official currency of 16 of the 27 Member States of the European Union . The states, known collectively as the Eurozone, are Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain...
in 2001 and successfully hosted the
2004 Olympic GamesThe 2004 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad, was a premier international multi-sport event held in Athens, Greece from August 13 to August 29, 2004 with the motto Welcome Home. 10,625 athletes competed, some 600 more than expected, accompanied by 5,501 team...
in
AthensAthens , the capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the world's oldest cities, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
.
Government and politics
Greece is a
parliamentary republicA parliamentary republic or parliamentary constitutional republic is a type of republic which operates under a parliamentary system of government .- The Power of Parliament :In contrast to republics operating...
. The nominal
head of stateHead of state is the generic term for the individual or collective office that serves as the chief public representative of a monarchy, republic, federation, commonwealth or other kind of state...
is the
President of the RepublicThe President of the Hellenic Republic , colloquially referred to in English as the President of Greece, is the elected head of state of Greece. The incumbent is Dr Karolos Papoulias.-Powers:...
, who is elected by the
ParliamentThe Hellenic Parliament is the Parliament of Greece, located in the Parliament House , overlooking Syntagma Square in Athens, Greece...
for a five-year term. The current
ConstitutionThe Constitution of Greece , was created by the Fifth Revisional Parliament of the Hellenes and entered into force in 1975. It has been revised twice since, in 1986 and in 2001. The Constitutional history of Greece goes back to the Greek War of Independence, during which the first three...
was drawn up and adopted by the Fifth Revisionary Parliament of the Hellenes and entered into force in 1975 after the fall of the
military junta of 1967–1974The Greek military junta of 1967–1974, alternatively "The Regime of the Colonels" , or in Greece "The Junta", and "The Seven Years" are terms used to refer to a series of right-wing military governments that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974...
. It has been revised twice since, in 1986 and in
2001The Amendment of 2001 constituted the most important amendment of the Constitution of 1974. The Amendment of 1986 was much more limited, as it led to the modification of just a few articles concerning the President's powers....
. The Constitution, which consists of 120 articles, provides for a
separation of powersThe separation of powers, also known as trias politica, is a model for the governance of democratic states. The model was first developed in ancient Greece and came into widespread use by the Roman Republic as part of the uncodified Constitution of the Roman Republic...
into executive, legislative, and judicial branches, and grants extensive specific guarantees (further reinforced in 2001) of
civil libertiesCivil liberties are rights in Freedom that protect an individual from the government of the nation in which they reside. Civil liberties set limits on government so that its members cannot abuse their power and interfere unduly with the lives of private citizens.Common civil liberties include the...
and
social rightsEconomic, social and cultural rights are socio-economic human rights; compare with civil and political rights. Economic, social and cultural rights are included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and elaborated upon in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights...
.
Women's suffrageWomen's suffrage is the right of women to vote, and historically includes the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending suffrage to women. The movement's modern origins lie in France in the 18th century. Of currently existing independent countries, New Zealand was the first to give...
was guaranteed with a 1952 Constitutional amendment.
According to the Constitution, executive power is exercised by the President of the Republic and the
GovernmentThe cabinet of Greece, officially called the Ministerial Council comprises the heads of the ministries. Ministers are appointed by the President on the advice of the Prime Minister...
. From the
Constitutional amendment of 1986The Greek Constitutional amendment of 1986 was based on the previously increased responsibilities of the President of the Republic. Despite the fact that the "increased" responsibilities of the President of the Republic were never exercised until 1986, by virtue of their mere existence they...
the President's duties were curtailed to a significant extent, and they are now largely ceremonial; most political power thus lies in the hands of the Prime Minister. The position of
Prime MinisterThe Prime Minister of Greece , officially the Prime Minister of the Hellenic Republic , is the head of government of the Hellenic Republic and the leader of the Greek cabinet. The current Prime Minister is George Papandreou, leader of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement party...
, Greece's
head of governmentHead of government is the chief officer of the executive branch of a government, often presiding over a cabinet. In a parliamentary system, the head of government is often styled Prime Minister, President of the Government, Premier, etc...
, belongs to the
current leader of the
political party that can obtain a vote of confidence by the Parliament. The President of the Republic formally appoints the Prime Minister and, on his recommendation, appoints and dismisses the other members of the Cabinet.
Legislative power is exercised by a 300-member elective
unicameral ParliamentUnicameralism is the practice of having only one legislative or parliamentary chamber. Many countries with unicameral legislatures are often small and homogeneous unitary states and consider an upper house or second chamber unnecessary.-Concept:...
. Statutes passed by the Parliament are promulgated by the President of the Republic. Parliamentary elections are held every four years, but the President of the Republic is obliged to dissolve the Parliament earlier on the proposal of the Cabinet, in view of dealing with a national issue of exceptional importance. The President is also obliged to dissolve the Parliament earlier, if the opposition manages to pass a
motion of no confidenceA motion of no confidence is a parliamentary motion traditionally put before a parliament by the opposition in the hope of defeating or weakening a government, or, rarely by an erstwhile supporter who has lost confidence in the government...
.
The
JudiciaryIn Greece, Constitution firmly established the independence of the justice system.According to section E';-The two branches of the Greek judicial system:...
is independent of the executive and the legislature and comprises three Supreme Courts: the
Court of CassationThe Court of Cassation is the Supreme Court of Greece for civil and criminal law. The Court of Cassation's decisions are irrevocable. If the Court of Cassation concludes that a lower court violated the law or the principles of the procedure, then it can order the rehearing of the case by the lower...
(Άρειος Πάγος), the
Council of StateIn Greece, the Council of State is, at the same time, an administrative organ and the Supreme Administrative Court...
(Συμβούλιο της Επικρατείας) and the
Court of AuditorsIn Greece, the Chamber of Accounts is both an administrative organ and a Supreme Administrative Court with a special jurisdiction...
(Ελεγκτικό Συνέδριο). The Judiciary system is also composed of civil courts, which judge civil and penal cases and administrative courts, which judge disputes between the citizens and the Greek administrative authorities.
Political parties
Since the restoration of democracy, the Greek
two-party systemA two-party system is a form of party system where two major political parties dominate voting in nearly all elections, at every level. As a result, all, or nearly all, elected offices end up being held by candidates endorsed by one of the two major parties...
is dominated by the liberal-conservative
New DemocracyNew Democracy is the main centre-right political party and one of the two major parties in Greece. It was founded in 1974 by Konstantinos Karamanlis and formed the first cabinet of the Third Hellenic Republic...
(ND) and the social-democratic
Panhellenic Socialist MovementThe Panhellenic Socialist Movement, better known as PASOK , is a Greek centre-left political party. In 1981 PASOK formed the first socialist government in Greece's history, and subsequently governed the country for most of the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s...
(PASOK). Other significant parties include the
Communist Party of GreeceThe Communist Party of Greece , better known by its acronym, ΚΚΕ , is the oldest party in the Greek political scene.- Foundation :...
(KKE), the
Coalition of the Radical LeftThe Coalition of the Radical Left , commonly known by its Greek abbreviation ΣΥΡΙΖΑ , is a coalition of left political parties in Greece...
(SYRIZA) and the
Popular Orthodox RallyThe Popular Orthodox Rally or The People's Orthodox Rally , often abbreviated to ΛΑ.Ο.Σ. as a pun on the Greek word for people, is a Greek right-wing populist and nationalist political party, founded and led by journalist Georgios Karatzaferis...
(LAOS). The current prime minister is George Papandreou, president of the PASOK and son of the late
Andreas PapandreouAndreas Papandreou was a Greek economist, a socialist politician and a dominant figure in Greek politics. He served two terms as Prime Minister of Greece...
, who on
October 4, 2009Parliamentary elections were held in Greece on 4 October 2009. An election was not required until September 2011.On 2 September Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis announced he would request President Karolos Papoulias to dissolve Parliament and call an election...
, with a majority in the Parliament of 160 out of 300 seats.
Peripheries and prefectures
Administratively, Greece consists of thirteen peripheries subdivided into a total of fifty-one prefectures . There is also one
autonomous areaAn autonomous area is an area of a country that has a degree of autonomy, or freedom from an external authority. Typically it is either geographically distinct from the country or is populated by a national minority. Countries that include autonomous areas are often federacies...
,
Mount AthosMount Athos is a mountain on the peninsula of the same name in Macedonia, of northern Greece, called in Greek Agion Oros , or in English, "Holy Mountain". In Classical times, the peninsula was called Aktí...
, which borders the periphery of
Central MacedoniaCentral Macedonia is one of the thirteen peripheries of Greece, consisting of the central part of the region of Macedonia. It is divided into the prefectures of Chalkidiki, Imathia, Kilkis, Pella, Pieria, Serres, and Thessaloniki...
.
{| class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align:left;"
|- style="font-size:100%; text-align:center;"
! Map !! Number !!
PeripheryThe peripheries are the official regional administrative divisions of Greece. There are 13 peripheries , which are further subdivided into 54 prefectures....
!! Capital !!
AreaArea is a quantity expressing the two-dimensional size of a defined part of a surface, typically a region bounded by a closed curve. The term surface area refers to the total area of the exposed surface of a 3-dimensional solid, such as the sum of the areas of the exposed sides of a polyhedron...
!!
PopulationIn biology, a population is the collection of inter-breeding organisms of a particular species; in sociology, a collection of human beings. Individuals within a population share a factor may be reduced by statistical means, but such a generalization may be too vague to imply anything...
| rowspan=15 |
|-
| 1 ||
AtticaAttica is a periphery in Greece, containing Athens, the capital of Greece. Attica is subdivided into the prefectures of Athens, Piraeus, East Attica and West Attica.-Overview:...
||
AthensAthens , the capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the world's oldest cities, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
|| style="text-align:right"|3,808 km²|| style="text-align:right"|3,761,810
|-
| 2 ||
Central GreeceThe periphery of Continental Greece or Central Greece is one of the thirteen peripheries of Greece. It is divided into the prefectures of Euboea, Evrytania, Phocis, Phthiotis, and Boeotia....
||
LamiaLamia is a city in central Greece. The city has a continuous history since Antiquity, and is today the capital of the prefecture of Phthiotis and periphery of Central Greece .-Name:...
|| style="text-align:right"|15,549 km²|| style="text-align:right"|605,329
|-
| 3 ||
Central MacedoniaCentral Macedonia is one of the thirteen peripheries of Greece, consisting of the central part of the region of Macedonia. It is divided into the prefectures of Chalkidiki, Imathia, Kilkis, Pella, Pieria, Serres, and Thessaloniki...
||
ThessalonikiThessaloniki , Thessalonica, or Salonica is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the Greek region of Macedonia. It is honorarily called the Συμπρωτεύουσα Symprotevousa of Greece, as it was once called the συμβασιλεύουσα symvasilevousa of the Byzantine Empire...
||style="text-align:right"|18,811 km²|| style="text-align:right"|1,871,952
|-
| 4 ||
CreteCrete is the largest of the Greek islands and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km²...
||
HeraklionHeraklion or Iraklion , is the largest city and capital of Crete. It is also the fourth largest city in Greece. Its name is also spelled Herakleion, a transliteration of the ancient Greek and Katharevousa name, , or Iraklio, among other variants...
|| style="text-align:right"|8,259 km²|| style="text-align:right"|601,131
|-
| 5 ||
East Macedonia and ThraceEast Macedonia and Thrace is one of the thirteen peripheries of Greece, consisting of the eastern part of the region of Macedonia along with the region of Thrace...
||
KomotiniKomotini or Komotene , is a city in north-eastern Greece. It is the capital of the periphery of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace and the Rhodope Prefecture. It is also the administrative center of the Rhodope-Evros super-prefecture. The city is home to the Democritus University of Thrace, founded in 1973...
|| style="text-align:right"|14,157 km²|| style="text-align:right"|611,067
|-
| 6 ||
EpirusEpirus , is a periphery in northwestern Greece. It borders the peripheries of West Macedonia and Thessaly to the east, West Greece to the south, the Ionian Sea and the Ionian Islands to the west and Albania to the north. The province has an area of about 9,200 km²...
||
IoanninaIoannina is a city of Epirus, north-western Greece, with a metropolitan population of approximately 100,000, and lies at an elevation of 600 metres above sea level. It is the capital of Ioannina Prefecture and of Epirus, lying on the western side of lake Pamvotis...
||style="text-align:right"|9,203 km²|| style="text-align:right"|353,820
|-
| 7 ||
Ionian IslandsThe Ionian Islands are a group of islands in Greece. They are traditionally called "Eptanisa", i.e...
||
CorfuCorfu is a city in north-western Greece. It is the capital and main town of the island and prefecture of Corfu. The city is a major tourist attraction, and has played an important role since the 8th century. The city has become known as a Kastropolis because of its three castles...
|| style="text-align:right"|2,307 km²|| style="text-align:right"|212,984
|-
| 8 ||
North AegeanNorth Aegean is one of the thirteen peripheries of Greece. It consists of the prefectures of Chios, Lesbos and Samos.-Major communities:*Chíos *Kalloní *Karlóvasi *Mýrina *Mytilíni *Omiroúpoli...
||
MytileneMytilene is the capital city of Lesbos, a Greek island in the Aegean Sea, and capital of Lesbos Prefecture and the Northern Aegean region. It is built on the southeast edge of the island...
|| style="text-align:right"|3,836 km²|| style="text-align:right"|206,121
|-
| 9 ||
PeloponnesePeloponnese , is a periphery in southern Greece. It borders the periphery of West Greece to the north and that of Attica to the north-east. The province has an area of about 15,490 km²...
||
KalamataKalamata is the second-largest city of the Peloponnese in southern Greece. The capital and chief port of the Messenia prefecture, it lies along the Nedon River at the head of the Messenian Gulf...
|| style="text-align:right"|15,490 km²|| style="text-align:right"|638,942
|-
| 10 ||
South AegeanSouth Aegean is one of the thirteen peripheries of Greece. It consists of the Cyclades and Dodecanese islands in the South Aegean Sea. The capital of the periphery is situated in Ermoupoli, Syros island while a suboffice is operating in Rhodes, the economical, social and tourism centre of the...
||
ErmoupoliSee also Hermopolis for other usesErmoupoli , also known with its formal name as Ermoupolis , is a city in Greece...
|| style="text-align:right"|5,286 km²|| style="text-align:right"|302,686
|-
| 11 ||
ThessalyThessaly is one of the 13 peripheries of Greece, and is further sub-divided into 4 prefectures. The capital of the periphery and traditional geographical region is Larissa. Together with the regions of Macedonia and Thrace, it is often referred to unofficially as Northern Greece...
||
LarissaLarissa is a city and the capital of the Thessaly periphery of Greece, and capital of the Larissa Prefecture. It is a principal agricultural centre and a national transportation hub, linked by rail with the port of Volos and with Thessaloniki and Athens...
|| style="text-align:right"|14.037 km²|| style="text-align:right"|753,888
|-
| 12 ||
West GreeceWest Greece is one of the thirteen peripheries of Greece. It is divided into the prefectures of Achaea, Aetolia-Acarnania and Ilia.Its climate has hot summers and mild winters. Sunny days dominate during the summer months in areas within the beaches and partially cloudy and rainy in the mountains...
||
PatrasPatras is Greece's third largest urban centre and the capital of the prefecture of Achaea, located in northern Peloponnese, 215 kilometers west of Athens...
|| style="text-align:right"|11,350 km²|| style="text-align:right"|740,506
|-
| 13 ||
West MacedoniaWest Macedonia is one of the thirteen peripheries of Greece, consisting of the western part of the region of Macedonia. It is divided into the prefectures of Florina, Grevena, Kastoria, and Kozani.-Geography:...
||
KozaniKozani is a city in northern Greece, capital of Kozani Prefecture and of West Macedonia periphery. It is located in the western part of Macedonia, in the northern part of the Aliakmonas river valley...
|| style="text-align:right"|9,451 km²|| style="text-align:right"|301,522
|-
| - ||
Mount AthosMount Athos is a mountain on the peninsula of the same name in Macedonia, of northern Greece, called in Greek Agion Oros , or in English, "Holy Mountain". In Classical times, the peninsula was called Aktí...
(Autonomous) ||
KaryesKaryes is a settlement in Mount Athos. It is the seat of the clerical and secular administration of the Athonite monastic state. The 2001 Greek census reported a population of 233 inhabitants...
|| style="text-align:right"|390 km²|| style="text-align:right"|2,262
|}
Foreign relations
Greece is a member of the
European UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 Member States, located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community...
since 1981, a member of the
Economic and Monetary Union of the European UnionA monetary union is an arrangement where several countries have agreed to share a single currency amongst themselves. The European Economic and Monetary Union consists of three stages coordinating economic policy, achieving economic convergence and culminating with the adoption of the euro, the...
since 2001,
NATOThe North Atlantic Treaty Organization ); ), also called "the Atlantic Alliance", is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on April 4, 1949...
since 1952, the
OECDThe Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is an international organisation of 30 countries that accept the principles of representative democracy and free-market economy...
since 1961, the
WEUThe Western European Union is a largely dormant intergovernmental defence and security organisation, established on the basis of the Treaty of Brussels of 1948, with the accession of West Germany and Italy in 1954. The WEU headquarters are in Brussels...
since 1995, a founding member of
Black Sea Economic CooperationOn 25 June 1992, the Heads of State and Government of eleven countries signed in Istanbul the Summit Declaration and the Bosporus Statement giving birth to the Black Sea Economic Cooperation ...
and a member of
ESA|owner = |headquarters = Paris|spaceport = Guiana Space Centre|image = ESA LOGO.svg|size = 240px|acronym = ESA|established = 1975|administrator = Jean-Jacques Dordain...
since 2005.
Prominent issues in Greek foreign policy include the enduring dispute over Cyprus, differences with Turkey over the
AegeanThe term Aegean dispute refers to a set of interrelated controversial issues between Greece and Turkey over sovereignty and related rights in the area of the Aegean Sea. This set of conflicts has had a large effect on Greek-Turkish relations since the 1970s. It has twice led to crises coming close...
sea, as well as the
naming disputeThe Macedonia naming dispute refers to the disagreement over the use of the name Macedonia between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia. Greece opposes the post-1991 constitutional name of its northern neighbour, citing the lack of disambiguation between it and the adjacent Greek region of Macedonia...
with the
Republic of MacedoniaMacedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country in the central Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
, which Greece refers to internationally by the provisional reference "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia".
Geography
{| style="float:right;" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="1"
|-
|
Greece , officially the
Hellenic Republic (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία,
Ellīnikī́ Dīmokratía, ), is a
countryIn geography, a country is a geographical region. The term is often applied to a political division or the territory of a state, or to a smaller, or former, political division of a geographical region...
in southeastern Europe, situated on the southern end of the
Balkan PeninsulaThe Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
.
The country has borders with
AlbaniaAlbania , officially the Republic of Albania , is a Mediterranean country in South Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Montenegro to the north, Kosovo to the northeast, Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south-east...
, the
Republic of MacedoniaMacedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country in the central Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
and
BulgariaBulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a country in the Balkans in south-eastern Europe. Bulgaria borders five other countries: Romania to the north , Serbia and the Republic of Macedonia to the west, and Greece and Turkey to the south...
to the north, and
TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey
, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe...
to the east. The
Aegean SeaThe Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey respectively. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...
lies to the east and south of mainland Greece, while the
Ionian SeaThe Ionian Sea is an arm of the Mediterranean Sea, south of the Adriatic Sea. It is bounded by southern Italy including Calabria, Sicily and the Salento peninsula to the west, and by southwestern Albania, including Saranda and Himara, and a large number of Greek islands, including Corfu, Zante,...
lies to the west. Both parts of the Eastern
MediterraneanThe Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by Africa, and on the east by the Levant. The sea is technically a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it...
basin feature a vast number of
islands, islets and rock islands.
Modern Greece traces its roots to the civilization of
ancient GreeceAncient Greece is the civilisation belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. It is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the...
, generally considered to be the cradle of
Western civilizationWestern culture refers to cultures of European origin.The term "Western culture" is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and technologies...
. As such, it is the birthplace of
democracyDemocracy is a system of government in which either the actual governing is carried out by the people governed , or the power to do so is granted by them...
,
Western philosophyWestern philosophy is the philosophical thought and work of the Western or Occidental world, as distinct from Eastern or Oriental philosophies and the varieties of indigenous philosophies....
, the
Olympic GamesThe Olympic Games are a major international event of summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes compete in a wide variety of events. The Games are currently held every two years, with Summer and Winter Olympic Games alternating. Originally, the ancient Olympic Games were held in...
,
Western literatureWestern literature refers to the literature written in the languages of Europe, including the ones belonging to the Indo-European language family as well as several geographically or historically related languages such as Basque, Hungarian, and so forth...
and
historiographyHistoriography is the history of history, the aspect of history and of semiotics that considers how knowledge of the past, either recent or distant, is obtained and transmitted...
,
political sciencePolitical science is a social science concerned with the theory and practice of politics and the description and analysis of political systems and political behavior. It is often described as the pragmatic application of the art and science of politics defined as "who gets what, when and how",...
, major scientific and
mathematicalGreek mathematics, as that term is used in this article, is the mathematics written in Greek, developed from the 6th century BC to the 5th century AD around the Eastern shores of the Mediterranean. The word "mathematics" itself derives from the ancient Greek μάθημα , meaning "subject of...
principles, and Western
dramaDrama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a collective...
, including both
tragedyTragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that, paradoxically, offers its audience pleasure...
and
comedyComedy as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse generally intended to amuse, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in Ancient Greece...
.
Greece is a
developed countryThe term developed country is used to describe countries that have a high level of development according to some criteria. Which criteria, and which countries are classified as being developed, is a contentious issue and there is fierce debate about this. Economic criteria have tended to dominate...
, a member of the
European UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 Member States, located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community...
since 1981, a member of the
Economic and Monetary Union of the European UnionA monetary union is an arrangement where several countries have agreed to share a single currency amongst themselves. The European Economic and Monetary Union consists of three stages coordinating economic policy, achieving economic convergence and culminating with the adoption of the euro, the...
since 2001,
NATOThe North Atlantic Treaty Organization ); ), also called "the Atlantic Alliance", is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on April 4, 1949...
since 1952, the
OECDThe Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is an international organisation of 30 countries that accept the principles of representative democracy and free-market economy...
since 1961, the
WEUThe Western European Union is a largely dormant intergovernmental defence and security organisation, established on the basis of the Treaty of Brussels of 1948, with the accession of West Germany and Italy in 1954. The WEU headquarters are in Brussels...
since 1995, a founding member of the
Black Sea Economic CooperationOn 25 June 1992, the Heads of State and Government of eleven countries signed in Istanbul the Summit Declaration and the Bosporus Statement giving birth to the Black Sea Economic Cooperation ...
and a member of
ESA|owner = |headquarters = Paris|spaceport = Guiana Space Centre|image = ESA LOGO.svg|size = 240px|acronym = ESA|established = 1975|administrator = Jean-Jacques Dordain...
since 2005.
AthensAthens , the capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the world's oldest cities, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
is the capital;
ThessalonikiThessaloniki , Thessalonica, or Salonica is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the Greek region of Macedonia. It is honorarily called the Συμπρωτεύουσα Symprotevousa of Greece, as it was once called the συμβασιλεύουσα symvasilevousa of the Byzantine Empire...
,
PatrasPatras is Greece's third largest urban centre and the capital of the prefecture of Achaea, located in northern Peloponnese, 215 kilometers west of Athens...
,
HeraklionHeraklion or Iraklion , is the largest city and capital of Crete. It is also the fourth largest city in Greece. Its name is also spelled Herakleion, a transliteration of the ancient Greek and Katharevousa name, , or Iraklio, among other variants...
,
LarissaLarissa is a city and the capital of the Thessaly periphery of Greece, and capital of the Larissa Prefecture. It is a principal agricultural centre and a national transportation hub, linked by rail with the port of Volos and with Thessaloniki and Athens...
,
VolosVolos is a coastal port city situated at the center of the Greek mainland, about 326 km north from Athens and 215 km south from Thessaloniki...
,
IoanninaIoannina is a city of Epirus, north-western Greece, with a metropolitan population of approximately 100,000, and lies at an elevation of 600 metres above sea level. It is the capital of Ioannina Prefecture and of Epirus, lying on the western side of lake Pamvotis...
,
KavalaKavala , is the second largest city in northern Greece, the principal seaport of eastern Macedonia and the capital of Kavala prefecture. It is situated on the Bay of Kavala, across from the island of Thasos.-Antiquity:...
, Rhodes and
SerresSerres is a city in Greece, seat of the Serres prefecture.Serres may also refer to:Places:* Serres, Germany, a part of Wiernsheim in Baden-WürttembergIn France:* Serres, Aude in the Aude département...
are some of the country's other major cities.
History
Greece was the first area in Europe where advanced early civilizations emerged, beginning with the
Minoan civilizationThe Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age civilization which arose on the island of Crete. The Minoan culture flourished from approximately 2700 to 1450 BC; afterwards, Mycenaean Greek culture became dominant at Minoan sites in Crete...
in Crete and then the
MyceneanMycenae , is an archaeological site in Greece, located about 90 km south-west of Athens, in the north-eastern Peloponnese. Argos is 6 km to the south; Corinth, 48 km to the north...
civilization on the mainland. Later, city-states emerged across the Greek peninsula and spread to the shores of
Black Seaur a loser!The Black Sea is an inland sea bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas and various straits. The Bosporus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects it to...
, South Italy and Asia Minor reaching great levels of
prosperityWealth is an abundance of valuable resources or material possessions. The word is derived from the old English wela, which is from an Indo-European word stem...
that resulted in an unprecedented cultural boom, expressed in
architectureThe Parthenon is a temple of the Greek goddess Athena whom the people of Athens considered their protector. It was built in the 5th century BC on the Athenian Acropolis. It is the most important surviving building of Classical Greece, generally considered to be the culmination of the development...
,
dramaDrama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a collective...
,
scienceScience is in its broadest sense to any systematic knowledge-base or prescriptive practice that is capable of resulting in a prediction or predictable type of outcome...
and
philosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
, and nurtured in
AthensThe city of Athens during classical antiquity was a notable polis of Attica, Greece, leading the Delian League in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta and the Peloponnesian League. Athenian democracy was established in 508 BC under Cleisthenes following the tyranny of Hippias...
under a
democraticDemocracy is a system of government in which either the actual governing is carried out by the people governed , or the power to do so is granted by them...
environment.
AthensAthens , the capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the world's oldest cities, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
and
SpartaSparta was a city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the River Eurotas in the southern part of the Peloponnese. From c. 650 BC it rose to become the dominant military power in the region and as such was recognized as the overall leader of the combined Greek forces during the Greco-Persian Wars...
led the way in repelling the
Persian EmpireThe Achaemenid Empire or Persian Empire was the successor state of the Median Empire, ruling over significant portions of what would become Greater Iran. The Persian and the Median Empire taken together are also known as the Medo-Persian Empire, succeeding the Neo-Assyrian Empire...
in a series of
battlesFor other Persian wars, see Roman-Persian Wars, Arab-Persian Wars, Persian Gulf Wars, and Military history of Iran.The Greco-Persian Wars , were a series of conflicts between the Persian Empire and city-states of the Hellenic world that started in 499 BC and lasted until 450 BC...
. Both were later overshadowed by
ThebesThebes was a Boeotian city-state , situated to the north of the Cithaeron range, which divides Boeotia from Attica, and on the southern edge of the Boeotian plain...
and eventually
MacedonMacedonia or Macedon was an ancient kingdom, centered in the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, bordered by Epirus to the west, Paionia to the north, the region of Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south...
, with the latter under the guidance of
Alexander the GreatAlexander III of Macedon, popularly known as Alexander the Great , was an Ancient Greek king of Macedon who created one of the largest empires in ancient history...
uniting and leading the Greek world to victory over the Persians, to presage the Hellenistic era, itself brought only partially to a close two centuries later with the establishment of
RomanThe Roman Republic was the phase of the ancient Roman civilization characterized by a republican form of government. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, c...
rule over Greek lands in 146 BC. Many Greeks migrated to
AlexandriaAlexandria , with a population of 4.1 million, is the second-largest city in Egypt, and is the country's largest seaport, serving about 80% of Egypt's imports and exports...
,
AntiochAntioch on the Orontes was an ancient city on the eastern side of the Orontes River...
,
SeleuciaSeleucia was the first capital of the Seleucid Empire, and one of the great cities of antiquity standing in Mesopotamia, on the Tigris River.Seleucia may refer to:...
and the many other new Hellenistic cities in
AsiaThe Seleucid Empire was a Hellenistic empire, i.e. a successor state of Alexander the Great's empire. The Seleucid Empire was centered in the near East and at the height of its power included central Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Persia, today's Turkmenistan, Pamir and parts of Pakistan...
and
AfricaThe Ptolemaic Kingdom in and around Egypt began following Alexander the Great's conquest in 332 BC and ended with the death of Cleopatra VII and the Roman conquest in 30 BC. It was founded when Ptolemy I Soter declared himself Pharaoh of Egypt, creating a powerful Hellenistic state stretching from...
founded in Alexander's wake.
The subsequent mixture of
RomanAncient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
and Hellenic cultures took form in the establishment of the
Byzantine EmpireThe Byzantine Empire or Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on the capital of Constantinople, and ruled by Emperors in direct and de jure succession to the ancient Roman Emperors...
in 330 AD around
ConstantinopleConstantinople was the imperial capital of the Roman Empire , the Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire , the Latin Empire , and the Ottoman Empire...
. Byzantium remained a major cultural and military power for the next 1,123 years, until the
Fall of ConstantinopleThe Fall of Constantinople was the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire which occurred after a siege laid by the Ottoman Empire, under the command of Sultan Mehmed II. The siege lasted from Thursday, 5 April, 1453 until Tuesday, 29 May, 1453 , when the city fell to the Ottomans...
to the
Ottoman TurksThe Ottoman Turks were the subdivision of the Ottoman Muslim Millet that dominated the ruling class of the Ottoman Empire. Reliable information about the early history of the Ottomans is scarce. According to some sources , the leader of the Kayi tribe of the Oguz Turks, Ertugrul, left Persia in...
in 1453. On the eve of the Ottoman conquest, much of the Greek intelligentsia migrated to Italy and other parts of Europe not under Ottoman rule, playing a significant role in the
RenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe...
through the transmission of
ancient GreekAncient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic , Classical , and Hellenistic periods of ancient Greece and the ancient world. It is predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
works to
Western EuropeWestern Europe is the collection of countries in the westernmost region of Europe, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a cultural entity—the region lying west of Central Europe...
. Nevertheless, the
Ottoman milletMillet is an Ottoman Turkish term for a confessional community in the Ottoman Empire. In the 19th century, with the Tanzimat reforms, the term started to refer to legally protected religious minority groups, other than the ruling Sunni. Millet comes from the Arabic word millah and literally means...
system contributed to the cohesion of the Orthodox Greeks by segregating the various peoples within the empire based on religion, as the latter played an integral role in the formation of modern Greek identity.
After the
Greek War of IndependenceThe Greek War of Independence was a successful war of independence waged by the Greek revolutionaries between 1821 and 1829, with later assistance from several European powers, against the Ottoman Empire, who were assisted by their vassals, the Egyptian Khedivate and partly the Vilayet of...
, successfully waged against the
Ottoman EmpireThe Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299 to November 1, 1922 The Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State (Ottoman Turkish: دَوْلَتِ عَلِیَّهِ عُثْمَانِیَّه Dawlet-il ʿAliyyat-il ʿOs̠māniyye, Modern Turkish:...
from 1821 to 1829, the nascent Greek state was finally recognized under the
London Protocol-1829:On 22 March 1829, a conference of ambassadors of the three protecting powers established the borders of Greece, which was to encompass all lands south of the line running from the Ambracian Gulf to the Pagasetic Gulf, including Negroponte and the Cyclades but not Crete...
. In 1827,
Ioannis KapodistriasCount Ioannis Antonios Kapodistrias was a Greek diplomat of the Russian Empire and later first head of state of independent Greece.-Background and early career:Ioannis Kapodistrias was born in Corfu, Count Ioannis Antonios Kapodistrias ( – Komis Ioannis Antonios Kapodistrias, in , Conte...
, from
Ionian IslandsThe Ionian Islands are a group of islands in Greece. They are traditionally called "Eptanisa", i.e...
, was chosen as the first governor of the new Republic. However, following his assassination, the Great Powers installed a
monarchyThe Kingdom of Greece was a state established in 1832 in the Convention of London by the Great Powers...
under
OttoOtto, King of Greece was made the first modern king of Greece in 1832 under the Convention of London, whereby Greece became a new independent kingdom under the protection of the Great Powers .The second son of the philhellene King Ludwig I of Bavaria, Otto ascended the...
, of the Bavarian House of Wittelsbach. In 1843, an uprising forced the King to grant a constitution and a representative assembly. Due to his unimpaired authoritarian rule, he was eventually dethroned in 1863 and replaced by Prince Vilhelm (William) of Denmark, who took the name
George IGeorge I, King of the Hellenes was King of Greece from 1863 to 1913. Originally a Danish prince, George was only 17 years old when he was elected King by the Greek National Assembly, which had deposed the former King Otto...
and brought with him the
Ionian IslandsThe Ionian Islands are a group of islands in Greece. They are traditionally called "Eptanisa", i.e...
as a coronation gift from
BritainThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
. In 1877,
Charilaos TrikoupisCharilaos Trikoupis was a Greek politician who served as a Prime Minister of Greece seven times from 1875 until 1895....
, who is attributed with the significant improvement of the country's infrastructure, curbed the power of the monarchy to interfere in the assembly by issuing the rule of vote of confidence to any potential
prime ministerA prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. The position is usually held by, but need not always be held by, a politician. In many systems, the prime minister selects and can dismiss other members of the cabinet, and...
.
As a result of the
Balkan WarsThe Balkan Wars were two wars in South-eastern Europe in 1912–1913. The First Balkan War broke out on 8 October 1912 when Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro and Serbia , having large parts of their ethnic populations under Ottoman sovereignty, attacked the Ottoman Empire, terminating its five-century...
, Greece successfully increased the extent of her territory and population, a challenging context both socially and economically. In the following years, the struggle between
King Constantine IConstantine I, King of the Hellenes was King of Greece from 1913 to 1917 and from 1920 to 1922. He was Commander-in-Chief of the Hellenic Army during the unsuccessful Greco-Turkish War of 1897 and led the Greek forces during the successful Balkan Wars of 1912-1913, in which Greece captured...
and charismatic Prime Minister
Eleftherios VenizelosEleftherios Venizelos was an eminent Greek revolutionary, a prominent and illustrious statesman as well as a charismatic leader in the early 20th century...
over the country's foreign policy on the eve of
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
dominated the country's political scene, and divided the country into two opposed groups.
In the aftermath of WWI, Greece
foughtThe Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922, also called the War in Asia Minor or the Greek campaign of the Turkish War of Independence or The Asia Minor Catastrophe, was a series of military events occurring during the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire after World War I between May 1919 and October 1922...
against Turkish nationalists led by
Mustafa KemalMustafa Kemal Atatürk was a Turkish army officer, revolutionary statesman, and founder of the Republic of Turkey as well as its first President....
, a war which resulted in a massive population exchange between the two countries under the
Treaty of LausanneThe Treaty of Lausanne was a peace treaty signed in Lausanne, Switzerland, that settled the Anatolian and East Thracian parts of the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire by annulment of the Treaty of Sèvres that was signed by the Constantinople-based Ottoman government; as the consequence of the...
. According to various sources, several hundred thousand
Pontic GreeksThe Pontian Greeks are an ethnic group consisting of Greeks from the shores of the Black Sea and Pontus...
died during this period. Instability and successive
coups d'étatA coup d'état , or coup for short, is the sudden unconstitutional deposition of a legitimate government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another, either civil or military...
marked the following era, which was overshadowed by the massive task of incorporating 1.5 million
Greek refugeesGreek refugees is a collective term used to refer to the Greeks from Asia Minor who were evacuated or relocated in Greece following the Treaty of Lausanne and the Population exchange between Greece and Turkey...
from Asia Minor into Greek society. The Greek population in
IstanbulIstanbul is the largest city in Turkey and fifth largest city proper in the world with a population of 12.6 million. Istanbul is also a megacity, as well as the cultural and financial centre of Turkey. The city covers 39 districts of the Istanbul province...
had shrunk from 300,000 at the turn of the century to around 3,000 in the city today. On 28 October 1940 Fascist
ItalyThe Kingdom of Italy was a state forged in 1861 by the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia which is its legal predecessor State, and with the decisive help of France and Great Britain...
demanded the surrender of Greece, but Greek dictator
Ioannis MetaxasIoannis Metaxas was a Greek General, appointed Prime Minister of Greece between April-August 1936 and dictator during the 4th of August Regime, from 1936 until his death in 1941.- Military career :...
refused and in the following
Greco-Italian WarThe Greco-Italian War was a conflict between Italy and Greece which lasted from 28 October 1940 to 23 April 1941. It marked the beginning of the Balkans Campaign of World War II...
, Greece repelled Italian forces into
AlbaniaAlbania , officially the Republic of Albania , is a Mediterranean country in South Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Montenegro to the north, Kosovo to the northeast, Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south-east...
, giving the
AlliesThe Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . The involvement of the Allies in World War II was either natural and inevitable they were invaded or under the direct threat of invasion by the Axis or compelled by concerns that the Axis powers...
their first victory over
AxisThe Axis powers comprised the countries that were opposed to the Allies during World War II. The three major Axis powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan—were part of a military alliance on the signing of the Tripartite Pact in September 1940, which officially founded the Axis powers...
forces on land. The country would eventually fall to urgently dispatched German forces during the
Battle of GreeceThe Battle of Greece was a World War II battle that occurred on the Greek mainland and in southern Albania. The battle was fought between the Allied and Axis forces...
. The German occupiers nevertheless met serious challenges from the
Greek ResistanceThe Greek Resistance is the blanket term for a number of armed and unarmed groups from across the political spectrum that resisted the Axis Occupation of Greece in the period 1941-1944, during the Second World War.-Origins:...
. Over 100,000 civilians died from starvation during the winter of 1941–42. In 1943 virtually the entire
JewishThere have been organized Jewish communities in Greece for more than two thousand years. The oldest and the most characteristic Jewish group that has inhabited Greece are the Romaniotes, also known as "Greek Jews"...
population was deported to Nazi extermination camps.
After liberation, Greece experienced a bitter
civil warThe Greek Civil War was fought from 1946 to 1949 between the Greek governmental army, backed by the United Kingdom, United States, and the Democratic Army of Greece , the military branch of the Greek Communist Party , backed by Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Albania...
between
communistCommunism is a socioeconomic structure and political ideology that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless society based on common ownership and control of the means of production and property in general. Karl Marx posited that communism would be the final stage in human...
and anticommunist forces, which led to economic devastation and severe social tensions between
rightistsIn politics, right-wing, political right, rightist and the Right are terms used to describe a number of positions and ideologies. They are most commonly used to refer to support for preserving traditional or cultural values and customs or for maintaining some form of social hierarchy or private...
and largely communist
leftistsIn politics, left-wing, political left, leftist and the Left are terms used to describe a number of positions and ideologies. They are most commonly used to refer to support for changing traditional social orders or for creating a more egalitarian distribution of wealth and privilege...
for the next 30 years. The next 20 years were characterized by marginalisation of the left in the political and social spheres but also by
rapid economic growthThe term Greek economic miracle has been used to describe the impressive rate of economic and social development in Greece from the early 1950s to the mid-1970s. Between 1950 and 1973, the country had an average rate of economic growth of 7%, second in the world only to Japan’s during the same...
, propelled in part by the
Marshall PlanThe Marshall Plan was the primary plan of the United States for rebuilding and creating a stronger foundation for the countries of Western Europe, and repelling communism after World War II...
.
King
ConstantineConstantine II, King of the Hellenes was King of Greece from 1964 until deposed in 1973...
's
dismissalThe terms Apostasia or Iouliana or the Royal Coup are used to describe the political crisis in Greece that centred around the resignation, on 15 July 1965, of Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou and the appointment, by King Constantine II, of successive Prime Ministers from Papandreou's own...
of
George PapandreouGeorge Papandreou was a Greek politician who served three terms as Prime Minister of Greece. He was born at Kalentzi, in Achaea in West Greece. As a young man, he became involved in politics as a supporter of the Liberal leader Eleftherios Venizelos, who made him Governor of Chios after the...
's centrist government in July 1965 prompted a prolonged period of political turbulence which culminated in a coup d'état on 21 April 1967 by the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
-backed Regime of the Colonels. The brutal suppression of the
Athens Polytechnic uprisingThe Athens Polytechnic uprising in 1973 was a massive demonstration of popular rejection of the Greek military junta of 1967-1974. The uprising began on November 14, 1973, escalated to an open anti-junta revolt and ended in bloodshed in the early morning of November 17 after a series of events...
on 17 November 1973 sent shockwaves through the regime, and a counter-coup established
BrigadierBrigadier is a military rank, the meaning of which has a considerable variation.-Officer rank:In many countries, especially those formerly part of the former British Empire, a Brigadier is either the highest field rank or most junior General appointment, nominally commanding a brigade...
Dimitrios Ioannidis as dictator. On 20 July 1974, as
TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey
, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe...
invadedThe Turkish invasion of Cyprus, launched on 20 July 1974, was a Turkish military operation in response to a Greek military junta backed coup in Cyprus which had been staged by the Cypriot National Guard whose leaders deposed the Cypriot president and archbishop Makarios III and installed Nikos...
the island of
CyprusCyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country situated in the eastern Mediterranean, south of Turkey and west of Syria and Lebanon....
, the regime collapsed.
Former premier Konstantinos Karamanlis was invited back from
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
where he had lived in self-exile since 1963, marking the beginning of the
MetapolitefsiThe Metapolitefsi was a period in Greek history after the fall of the Greek military junta of 1967–1974 that includes the transitional period from the fall of the dictatorship to the Greek legislative elections of 1974 and the democratic period immediately after these elections.The long...
era. On the 14 August 1974 Greek forces withdrew from the integrated military structure of
NATOThe North Atlantic Treaty Organization ); ), also called "the Atlantic Alliance", is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on April 4, 1949...
in protest at the Turkish occupation of northern Cyprus. The first multiparty
electionsThe first free elections since 1964 and after the end of the Greek military junta of 1967-1974 took place in Greece on November 17, 1974 during the metapolitefsi....
since 1964 were held on the first anniversary of the Polytechnic uprising. A democratic and republican
constitutionThe Constitution of Greece , was created by the Fifth Revisional Parliament of the Hellenes and entered into force in 1975. It has been revised twice since, in 1986 and in 2001. The Constitutional history of Greece goes back to the Greek War of Independence, during which the first three...
was promulgated on 11 June 1975 following a referendum which abolished the monarchy. Meanwhile,
Andreas PapandreouAndreas Papandreou was a Greek economist, a socialist politician and a dominant figure in Greek politics. He served two terms as Prime Minister of Greece...
founded the
Panhellenic Socialist MovementThe Panhellenic Socialist Movement, better known as PASOK , is a Greek centre-left political party. In 1981 PASOK formed the first socialist government in Greece's history, and subsequently governed the country for most of the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s...
(PASOK) in response to Karamanlis's conservative
New DemocracyNew Democracy is the main centre-right political party and one of the two major parties in Greece. It was founded in 1974 by Konstantinos Karamanlis and formed the first cabinet of the Third Hellenic Republic...
party, with the two political formations alternating in government ever since. Greece rejoined NATO in 1980. Traditionally strained relations with neighbouring Turkey improved when successive earthquakes hit both nations in 1999, leading to the lifting of the Greek veto against Turkey's
bidTurkey's application to accede to the European Union was made on 14 April 1987. Turkey has been an associate member of the European Union and its predecessors since 1963...
for EU membership.
Greece became the tenth member of the
European CommunitiesThe European Communities were three international organisations that were governed by the same set of institutions...
(subsequently subsumed by the
European UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 Member States, located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community...
) on 1 January 1981, ushering in a period of remarkable and sustained economic growth. Widespread investments in industrial enterprises and heavy infrastructure, as well as funds from the European Union and growing revenues from tourism, shipping and a fast-growing service sector have raised the country's standard of living to unprecedented levels. The country adopted the
EuroThe euro is the official currency of 16 of the 27 Member States of the European Union . The states, known collectively as the Eurozone, are Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain...
in 2001 and successfully hosted the
2004 Olympic GamesThe 2004 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad, was a premier international multi-sport event held in Athens, Greece from August 13 to August 29, 2004 with the motto Welcome Home. 10,625 athletes competed, some 600 more than expected, accompanied by 5,501 team...
in
AthensAthens , the capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the world's oldest cities, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
.
Government and politics
Greece is a
parliamentary republicA parliamentary republic or parliamentary constitutional republic is a type of republic which operates under a parliamentary system of government .- The Power of Parliament :In contrast to republics operating...
. The nominal
head of stateHead of state is the generic term for the individual or collective office that serves as the chief public representative of a monarchy, republic, federation, commonwealth or other kind of state...
is the
President of the RepublicThe President of the Hellenic Republic , colloquially referred to in English as the President of Greece, is the elected head of state of Greece. The incumbent is Dr Karolos Papoulias.-Powers:...
, who is elected by the
ParliamentThe Hellenic Parliament is the Parliament of Greece, located in the Parliament House , overlooking Syntagma Square in Athens, Greece...
for a five-year term. The current
ConstitutionThe Constitution of Greece , was created by the Fifth Revisional Parliament of the Hellenes and entered into force in 1975. It has been revised twice since, in 1986 and in 2001. The Constitutional history of Greece goes back to the Greek War of Independence, during which the first three...
was drawn up and adopted by the Fifth Revisionary Parliament of the Hellenes and entered into force in 1975 after the fall of the
military junta of 1967–1974The Greek military junta of 1967–1974, alternatively "The Regime of the Colonels" , or in Greece "The Junta", and "The Seven Years" are terms used to refer to a series of right-wing military governments that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974...
. It has been revised twice since, in 1986 and in
2001The Amendment of 2001 constituted the most important amendment of the Constitution of 1974. The Amendment of 1986 was much more limited, as it led to the modification of just a few articles concerning the President's powers....
. The Constitution, which consists of 120 articles, provides for a
separation of powersThe separation of powers, also known as trias politica, is a model for the governance of democratic states. The model was first developed in ancient Greece and came into widespread use by the Roman Republic as part of the uncodified Constitution of the Roman Republic...
into executive, legislative, and judicial branches, and grants extensive specific guarantees (further reinforced in 2001) of
civil libertiesCivil liberties are rights in Freedom that protect an individual from the government of the nation in which they reside. Civil liberties set limits on government so that its members cannot abuse their power and interfere unduly with the lives of private citizens.Common civil liberties include the...
and
social rightsEconomic, social and cultural rights are socio-economic human rights; compare with civil and political rights. Economic, social and cultural rights are included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and elaborated upon in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights...
.
Women's suffrageWomen's suffrage is the right of women to vote, and historically includes the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending suffrage to women. The movement's modern origins lie in France in the 18th century. Of currently existing independent countries, New Zealand was the first to give...
was guaranteed with a 1952 Constitutional amendment.
According to the Constitution, executive power is exercised by the President of the Republic and the
GovernmentThe cabinet of Greece, officially called the Ministerial Council comprises the heads of the ministries. Ministers are appointed by the President on the advice of the Prime Minister...
. From the
Constitutional amendment of 1986The Greek Constitutional amendment of 1986 was based on the previously increased responsibilities of the President of the Republic. Despite the fact that the "increased" responsibilities of the President of the Republic were never exercised until 1986, by virtue of their mere existence they...
the President's duties were curtailed to a significant extent, and they are now largely ceremonial; most political power thus lies in the hands of the Prime Minister. The position of
Prime MinisterThe Prime Minister of Greece , officially the Prime Minister of the Hellenic Republic , is the head of government of the Hellenic Republic and the leader of the Greek cabinet. The current Prime Minister is George Papandreou, leader of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement party...
, Greece's
head of governmentHead of government is the chief officer of the executive branch of a government, often presiding over a cabinet. In a parliamentary system, the head of government is often styled Prime Minister, President of the Government, Premier, etc...
, belongs to the
current leader of the
political party that can obtain a vote of confidence by the Parliament. The President of the Republic formally appoints the Prime Minister and, on his recommendation, appoints and dismisses the other members of the Cabinet.
Legislative power is exercised by a 300-member elective
unicameral ParliamentUnicameralism is the practice of having only one legislative or parliamentary chamber. Many countries with unicameral legislatures are often small and homogeneous unitary states and consider an upper house or second chamber unnecessary.-Concept:...
. Statutes passed by the Parliament are promulgated by the President of the Republic. Parliamentary elections are held every four years, but the President of the Republic is obliged to dissolve the Parliament earlier on the proposal of the Cabinet, in view of dealing with a national issue of exceptional importance. The President is also obliged to dissolve the Parliament earlier, if the opposition manages to pass a
motion of no confidenceA motion of no confidence is a parliamentary motion traditionally put before a parliament by the opposition in the hope of defeating or weakening a government, or, rarely by an erstwhile supporter who has lost confidence in the government...
.
The
JudiciaryIn Greece, Constitution firmly established the independence of the justice system.According to section E';-The two branches of the Greek judicial system:...
is independent of the executive and the legislature and comprises three Supreme Courts: the
Court of CassationThe Court of Cassation is the Supreme Court of Greece for civil and criminal law. The Court of Cassation's decisions are irrevocable. If the Court of Cassation concludes that a lower court violated the law or the principles of the procedure, then it can order the rehearing of the case by the lower...
(Άρειος Πάγος), the
Council of StateIn Greece, the Council of State is, at the same time, an administrative organ and the Supreme Administrative Court...
(Συμβούλιο της Επικρατείας) and the
Court of AuditorsIn Greece, the Chamber of Accounts is both an administrative organ and a Supreme Administrative Court with a special jurisdiction...
(Ελεγκτικό Συνέδριο). The Judiciary system is also composed of civil courts, which judge civil and penal cases and administrative courts, which judge disputes between the citizens and the Greek administrative authorities.
Political parties
Since the restoration of democracy, the Greek
two-party systemA two-party system is a form of party system where two major political parties dominate voting in nearly all elections, at every level. As a result, all, or nearly all, elected offices end up being held by candidates endorsed by one of the two major parties...
is dominated by the liberal-conservative
New DemocracyNew Democracy is the main centre-right political party and one of the two major parties in Greece. It was founded in 1974 by Konstantinos Karamanlis and formed the first cabinet of the Third Hellenic Republic...
(ND) and the social-democratic
Panhellenic Socialist MovementThe Panhellenic Socialist Movement, better known as PASOK , is a Greek centre-left political party. In 1981 PASOK formed the first socialist government in Greece's history, and subsequently governed the country for most of the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s...
(PASOK). Other significant parties include the
Communist Party of GreeceThe Communist Party of Greece , better known by its acronym, ΚΚΕ , is the oldest party in the Greek political scene.- Foundation :...
(KKE), the
Coalition of the Radical LeftThe Coalition of the Radical Left , commonly known by its Greek abbreviation ΣΥΡΙΖΑ , is a coalition of left political parties in Greece...
(SYRIZA) and the
Popular Orthodox RallyThe Popular Orthodox Rally or The People's Orthodox Rally , often abbreviated to ΛΑ.Ο.Σ. as a pun on the Greek word for people, is a Greek right-wing populist and nationalist political party, founded and led by journalist Georgios Karatzaferis...
(LAOS). The current prime minister is George Papandreou, president of the PASOK and son of the late
Andreas PapandreouAndreas Papandreou was a Greek economist, a socialist politician and a dominant figure in Greek politics. He served two terms as Prime Minister of Greece...
, who on
October 4, 2009Parliamentary elections were held in Greece on 4 October 2009. An election was not required until September 2011.On 2 September Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis announced he would request President Karolos Papoulias to dissolve Parliament and call an election...
, with a majority in the Parliament of 160 out of 300 seats.
Peripheries and prefectures
Administratively, Greece consists of thirteen peripheries subdivided into a total of fifty-one prefectures . There is also one
autonomous areaAn autonomous area is an area of a country that has a degree of autonomy, or freedom from an external authority. Typically it is either geographically distinct from the country or is populated by a national minority. Countries that include autonomous areas are often federacies...
,
Mount AthosMount Athos is a mountain on the peninsula of the same name in Macedonia, of northern Greece, called in Greek Agion Oros , or in English, "Holy Mountain". In Classical times, the peninsula was called Aktí...
, which borders the periphery of
Central MacedoniaCentral Macedonia is one of the thirteen peripheries of Greece, consisting of the central part of the region of Macedonia. It is divided into the prefectures of Chalkidiki, Imathia, Kilkis, Pella, Pieria, Serres, and Thessaloniki...
.
{| class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align:left;"
|- style="font-size:100%; text-align:center;"
! Map !! Number !!
PeripheryThe peripheries are the official regional administrative divisions of Greece. There are 13 peripheries , which are further subdivided into 54 prefectures....
!! Capital !!
AreaArea is a quantity expressing the two-dimensional size of a defined part of a surface, typically a region bounded by a closed curve. The term surface area refers to the total area of the exposed surface of a 3-dimensional solid, such as the sum of the areas of the exposed sides of a polyhedron...
!!
PopulationIn biology, a population is the collection of inter-breeding organisms of a particular species; in sociology, a collection of human beings. Individuals within a population share a factor may be reduced by statistical means, but such a generalization may be too vague to imply anything...
| rowspan=15 |
|-
| 1 ||
AtticaAttica is a periphery in Greece, containing Athens, the capital of Greece. Attica is subdivided into the prefectures of Athens, Piraeus, East Attica and West Attica.-Overview:...
||
AthensAthens , the capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the world's oldest cities, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
|| style="text-align:right"|3,808 km²|| style="text-align:right"|3,761,810
|-
| 2 ||
Central GreeceThe periphery of Continental Greece or Central Greece is one of the thirteen peripheries of Greece. It is divided into the prefectures of Euboea, Evrytania, Phocis, Phthiotis, and Boeotia....
||
LamiaLamia is a city in central Greece. The city has a continuous history since Antiquity, and is today the capital of the prefecture of Phthiotis and periphery of Central Greece .-Name:...
|| style="text-align:right"|15,549 km²|| style="text-align:right"|605,329
|-
| 3 ||
Central MacedoniaCentral Macedonia is one of the thirteen peripheries of Greece, consisting of the central part of the region of Macedonia. It is divided into the prefectures of Chalkidiki, Imathia, Kilkis, Pella, Pieria, Serres, and Thessaloniki...
||
ThessalonikiThessaloniki , Thessalonica, or Salonica is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the Greek region of Macedonia. It is honorarily called the Συμπρωτεύουσα Symprotevousa of Greece, as it was once called the συμβασιλεύουσα symvasilevousa of the Byzantine Empire...
||style="text-align:right"|18,811 km²|| style="text-align:right"|1,871,952
|-
| 4 ||
CreteCrete is the largest of the Greek islands and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km²...
||
HeraklionHeraklion or Iraklion , is the largest city and capital of Crete. It is also the fourth largest city in Greece. Its name is also spelled Herakleion, a transliteration of the ancient Greek and Katharevousa name, , or Iraklio, among other variants...
|| style="text-align:right"|8,259 km²|| style="text-align:right"|601,131
|-
| 5 ||
East Macedonia and ThraceEast Macedonia and Thrace is one of the thirteen peripheries of Greece, consisting of the eastern part of the region of Macedonia along with the region of Thrace...
||
KomotiniKomotini or Komotene , is a city in north-eastern Greece. It is the capital of the periphery of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace and the Rhodope Prefecture. It is also the administrative center of the Rhodope-Evros super-prefecture. The city is home to the Democritus University of Thrace, founded in 1973...
|| style="text-align:right"|14,157 km²|| style="text-align:right"|611,067
|-
| 6 ||
EpirusEpirus , is a periphery in northwestern Greece. It borders the peripheries of West Macedonia and Thessaly to the east, West Greece to the south, the Ionian Sea and the Ionian Islands to the west and Albania to the north. The province has an area of about 9,200 km²...
||
IoanninaIoannina is a city of Epirus, north-western Greece, with a metropolitan population of approximately 100,000, and lies at an elevation of 600 metres above sea level. It is the capital of Ioannina Prefecture and of Epirus, lying on the western side of lake Pamvotis...
||style="text-align:right"|9,203 km²|| style="text-align:right"|353,820
|-
| 7 ||
Ionian IslandsThe Ionian Islands are a group of islands in Greece. They are traditionally called "Eptanisa", i.e...
||
CorfuCorfu is a city in north-western Greece. It is the capital and main town of the island and prefecture of Corfu. The city is a major tourist attraction, and has played an important role since the 8th century. The city has become known as a Kastropolis because of its three castles...
|| style="text-align:right"|2,307 km²|| style="text-align:right"|212,984
|-
| 8 ||
North AegeanNorth Aegean is one of the thirteen peripheries of Greece. It consists of the prefectures of Chios, Lesbos and Samos.-Major communities:*Chíos *Kalloní *Karlóvasi *Mýrina *Mytilíni *Omiroúpoli...
||
MytileneMytilene is the capital city of Lesbos, a Greek island in the Aegean Sea, and capital of Lesbos Prefecture and the Northern Aegean region. It is built on the southeast edge of the island...
|| style="text-align:right"|3,836 km²|| style="text-align:right"|206,121
|-
| 9 ||
PeloponnesePeloponnese , is a periphery in southern Greece. It borders the periphery of West Greece to the north and that of Attica to the north-east. The province has an area of about 15,490 km²...
||
KalamataKalamata is the second-largest city of the Peloponnese in southern Greece. The capital and chief port of the Messenia prefecture, it lies along the Nedon River at the head of the Messenian Gulf...
|| style="text-align:right"|15,490 km²|| style="text-align:right"|638,942
|-
| 10 ||
South AegeanSouth Aegean is one of the thirteen peripheries of Greece. It consists of the Cyclades and Dodecanese islands in the South Aegean Sea. The capital of the periphery is situated in Ermoupoli, Syros island while a suboffice is operating in Rhodes, the economical, social and tourism centre of the...
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ErmoupoliSee also Hermopolis for other usesErmoupoli , also known with its formal name as Ermoupolis , is a city in Greece...
|| style="text-align:right"|5,286 km²|| style="text-align:right"|302,686
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ThessalyThessaly is one of the 13 peripheries of Greece, and is further sub-divided into 4 prefectures. The capital of the periphery and traditional geographical region is Larissa. Together with the regions of Macedonia and Thrace, it is often referred to unofficially as Northern Greece...
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LarissaLarissa is a city and the capital of the Thessaly periphery of Greece, and capital of the Larissa Prefecture. It is a principal agricultural centre and a national transportation hub, linked by rail with the port of Volos and with Thessaloniki and Athens...
|| style="text-align:right"|14.037 km²|| style="text-align:right"|753,888
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West GreeceWest Greece is one of the thirteen peripheries of Greece. It is divided into the prefectures of Achaea, Aetolia-Acarnania and Ilia.Its climate has hot summers and mild winters. Sunny days dominate during the summer months in areas within the beaches and partially cloudy and rainy in the mountains...
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PatrasPatras is Greece's third largest urban centre and the capital of the prefecture of Achaea, located in northern Peloponnese, 215 kilometers west of Athens...
|| style="text-align:right"|11,350 km²|| style="text-align:right"|740,506
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West MacedoniaWest Macedonia is one of the thirteen peripheries of Greece, consisting of the western part of the region of Macedonia. It is divided into the prefectures of Florina, Grevena, Kastoria, and Kozani.-Geography:...
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KozaniKozani is a city in northern Greece, capital of Kozani Prefecture and of West Macedonia periphery. It is located in the western part of Macedonia, in the northern part of the Aliakmonas river valley...
|| style="text-align:right"|9,451 km²|| style="text-align:right"|301,522
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Mount AthosMount Athos is a mountain on the peninsula of the same name in Macedonia, of northern Greece, called in Greek Agion Oros , or in English, "Holy Mountain". In Classical times, the peninsula was called Aktí...
(Autonomous) ||
KaryesKaryes is a settlement in Mount Athos. It is the seat of the clerical and secular administration of the Athonite monastic state. The 2001 Greek census reported a population of 233 inhabitants...
|| style="text-align:right"|390 km²|| style="text-align:right"|2,262
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Foreign relations
Greece is a member of the
European UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 Member States, located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community...
since 1981, a member of the
Economic and Monetary Union of the European UnionA monetary union is an arrangement where several countries have agreed to share a single currency amongst themselves. The European Economic and Monetary Union consists of three stages coordinating economic policy, achieving economic convergence and culminating with the adoption of the euro, the...
since 2001,
NATOThe North Atlantic Treaty Organization ); ), also called "the Atlantic Alliance", is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on April 4, 1949...
since 1952, the
OECDThe Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is an international organisation of 30 countries that accept the principles of representative democracy and free-market economy...
since 1961, the
WEUThe Western European Union is a largely dormant intergovernmental defence and security organisation, established on the basis of the Treaty of Brussels of 1948, with the accession of West Germany and Italy in 1954. The WEU headquarters are in Brussels...
since 1995, a founding member of
Black Sea Economic CooperationOn 25 June 1992, the Heads of State and Government of eleven countries signed in Istanbul the Summit Declaration and the Bosporus Statement giving birth to the Black Sea Economic Cooperation ...
and a member of
ESA|owner = |headquarters = Paris|spaceport = Guiana Space Centre|image = ESA LOGO.svg|size = 240px|acronym = ESA|established = 1975|administrator = Jean-Jacques Dordain...
since 2005.
Prominent issues in Greek foreign policy include the enduring dispute over Cyprus, differences with Turkey over the
AegeanThe term Aegean dispute refers to a set of interrelated controversial issues between Greece and Turkey over sovereignty and related rights in the area of the Aegean Sea. This set of conflicts has had a large effect on Greek-Turkish relations since the 1970s. It has twice led to crises coming close...
sea, as well as the
naming disputeThe Macedonia naming dispute refers to the disagreement over the use of the name Macedonia between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia. Greece opposes the post-1991 constitutional name of its northern neighbour, citing the lack of disambiguation between it and the adjacent Greek region of Macedonia...
with the
Republic of MacedoniaMacedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country in the central Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
, which Greece refers to internationally by the provisional reference "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia".
Geography
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AlbaniaAlbania , officially the Republic of Albania , is a Mediterranean country in South Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Montenegro to the north, Kosovo to the northeast, Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south-east...
Rep. MacedoniaMacedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country in the central Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
BulgariaBulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a country in the Balkans in south-eastern Europe. Bulgaria borders five other countries: Romania to the north , Serbia and the Republic of Macedonia to the west, and Greece and Turkey to the south...
TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey
, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe...
Greece
AthensAthens , the capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the world's oldest cities, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
ThessalonikiThessaloniki , Thessalonica, or Salonica is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the Greek region of Macedonia. It is honorarily called the Συμπρωτεύουσα Symprotevousa of Greece, as it was once called the συμβασιλεύουσα symvasilevousa of the Byzantine Empire...
KavalaKavala , is the second largest city in northern Greece, the principal seaport of eastern Macedonia and the capital of Kavala prefecture. It is situated on the Bay of Kavala, across from the island of Thasos.-Antiquity:...
ThasosThasos or Thassos is a Greek island in the northern Aegean Sea, close to the coast of Thrace and the plain of the river Nestos but geographically part of Macedonia.-Prehistory:...
AlexandroupoliFor the ancient city of Alexander the Great in the Thracian mainland, see Alexandropolis MaedicaAlexandroupoli is a city of Greece and the capital of the Evros Prefecture in Thrace. Names for the city in other languages include , and...
SamothraceSamothrace is a Greek island in the northern Aegean Sea. It is a self-governing deme within the Evros Prefecture of Thrace. The island is long and is in size and has a population of 2,723 . Its main industries are fishing and tourism. Resources on the island includes granite and basalt. ...
CorfuCorfu is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the second largest of the Ionian Islands, and its northern part lies off the coast of Sarandë, Albania from which it is separated by straits varying in breadth from 3 to 23 km , including one near ancient Butrint, while its southern part lies...
IgoumenitsaIgoumenitsa , is a coastal city in northwestern Greece. It is the capital of the prefecture Thesprotia. Its original ancient name used to be Titani....
LarissaLarissa is a city and the capital of the Thessaly periphery of Greece, and capital of the Larissa Prefecture. It is a principal agricultural centre and a national transportation hub, linked by rail with the port of Volos and with Thessaloniki and Athens...
VolosVolos is a coastal port city situated at the center of the Greek mainland, about 326 km north from Athens and 215 km south from Thessaloniki...
IoanninaIoannina is a city of Epirus, north-western Greece, with a metropolitan population of approximately 100,000, and lies at an elevation of 600 metres above sea level. It is the capital of Ioannina Prefecture and of Epirus, lying on the western side of lake Pamvotis...
ChalcisChalcis or Chalkida, Halkida, Halkis or Chalkis , the chief town of the island of Euboea in Greece, is situated on the strait of the Evripos at its narrowest point...
PatrasPatras is Greece's third largest urban centre and the capital of the prefecture of Achaea, located in northern Peloponnese, 215 kilometers west of Athens...
CorinthCorinth, or Korinth Corinth, or Korinth Corinth, or Korinth (Greek Κόρινθος, Kórinthos is a city in Greece. In antiquity it was a city-state, on the Isthmus of Corinth, the narrow stretch of land that joins the Peloponnesus to the mainland of Greece. To the west of the isthmus lies the Gulf of...
NafplionNafplion or Nauplion is a seaport town in the Peloponnese in Greece that has expanded up the hillsides near the north end of the Argolic Gulf. The town was the first capital of modern Greece, from 1829 to 1834...
SpartaSparta was a city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the River Eurotas in the southern part of the Peloponnese. From c. 650 BC it rose to become the dominant military power in the region and as such was recognized as the overall leader of the combined Greek forces during the Greco-Persian Wars...
AreopoliAreopoli is the second-largest town in Mani. The word areopoli means "city of Ares", the ancient Greek god of war. It is the seat of Oitylo municipality as well as Oitylo Province. However, Areopoli was not always the name of the city. Tsimova was Areopoli's first name...
PiraeusPiraeus is a city in the periphery of Attica, Greece, and a municipality within Athens urban area, located 10 km southwest of its center....
EleusinaElefsina is a town and municipality about 20 km NW of Athens. It is located near the northernmost end of the Saronic Gulf and is the seat of administration of West Attica Prefecture. It is best known for having been the site of the Eleusinian Mysteries, the most famous religious center of...
LauriumLaurium, Laurion, or Laureion is a town in southeastern part of Attica, Greece and is one of the southernmost and the seat of the municipality of Lavreotiki, famous in Classical antiquity for the silver mines which were one of the chief sources of...
HeraklionHeraklion or Iraklion , is the largest city and capital of Crete. It is also the fourth largest city in Greece. Its name is also spelled Herakleion, a transliteration of the ancient Greek and Katharevousa name, , or Iraklio, among other variants...
MacedoniaMacedonia is a geographical and historical region of Greece in southeastern Europe. Macedonia is the largest and second most populous Greek region...
ThraceThrace is a geographic and historical region of Greece, located between the Nestos and Evros rivers in the northeast of the country. Together with the regions of Macedonia and Epirus, it is often referred to informally as northern Greece...
EpirusEpirus , is a periphery in northwestern Greece. It borders the peripheries of West Macedonia and Thessaly to the east, West Greece to the south, the Ionian Sea and the Ionian Islands to the west and Albania to the north. The province has an area of about 9,200 km²...
ThessalyThessaly is one of the 13 peripheries of Greece, and is further sub-divided into 4 prefectures. The capital of the periphery and traditional geographical region is Larissa. Together with the regions of Macedonia and Thrace, it is often referred to unofficially as Northern Greece...
EuboeaFor the mythological figure, see Euboea Euboea is the second largest Greek island in area and population, after Crete. It is separated from the mainland of Greece by the narrow Euripus Strait...
Central GreeceContinental Greece or Central Greece , colloquially known as Roúmeli , is a geographical region of Greece. Its territory is divided into the peripheries of Central Greece, Attica, and one prefecture of West Greece...
PeloponneseThe Peloponnese or Peloponnesus is a large peninsula and region in southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth...
Mt. OlympusMount Olympus is the highest mountain range in Greece, its highest peak Mýtikas rising to 2,919 metres high . Since its base is located at sea level, it is one of the highest peaks in Europe in terms of topographic prominence, the relative altitude from base to top...
LefkadaLefkada, or Leucas is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea on the west coast of Greece, connected to the mainland by a long causeway and floating bridge. The city of Lefkada, is situated on the northern part of the island, approximately 20 minutes by automobile away from Aktion National Airport...
KefaloniaThe island of Kefalonia, also known as Cephallenia, Cephallonia, Kefallinia, or Kefallonia , is the largest of the Ionian Islands in western Greece, with an area of 350 sq. miles...
ZakynthosZakynthos , the third largest of the Ionian Islands, covers an area of and its coastline is roughly in length. The island is named after Zakynthos, the son of a legendary Arcadian chief Dardanus. The name, like all similar names ending in -nthos, is pre-Mycenaean or Pelasgian in origin...
LemnosLemnos or Limnos is an island in the northern part of the Aegean Sea. It is part of the Greek prefecture of Lesbos and has a considerable area, about 477 km². Lemnos is mostly flat , but the west, and especially the northwest part, is rough and mountainous...
LesbosLesbos is a Greek island located in the northeastern Aegean Sea. It has an area of 1632 km² with 320 kilometres of coastline, making it the third largest Greek island and the largest of the numerous Greek islands scattered in the Aegean. Administratively, it forms part of the Lesbos Prefecture...
ChiosChios is the fifth largest of the Greek islands, situated in the Aegean Sea, seven kilometres off the Asia Minor coast. The island is noted for its strong merchant shipping community, its unique mastic gum and its medieval villages...
SamosSamos is a Greek island in the North Aegean sea, south of Chios, north of Patmos and the Dodecanese, and off the coast of Asia Minor.-Geography:...
AndrosAndros, or Andro , an island of the Greek archipelago, the most northerly of the Cyclades, approximately 10 km south east of Euboea, and about north of Tinos. It is nearly long, and its greatest breadth is . Its surface is for the most part mountainous, with many fruitful and well-watered valleys...
TinosTinos is a Greek island situated in the Aegean Sea. It is located in the Cyclades archipelago. In ancient times, Tinos was also known as Ophiussa and Hydroessa . The closest islands are Andros, Delos, and Mykonos...
MykonosMykonos is a Greek island and a tourist destination, renowned for its cosmopolitan character and its intense nightlife. The island is part of the Cyclades, lying between Tinos, Syros, Paros and Naxos. It spans an area of and rises at an elevation of at its highest point. The island is composed...
IcariaIcaria, also spelled Ikaria , locally Nikaria or Nicaria , ancient name: Doliche , is a Greek island 10 nautical miles southwest of Samos. It derived its name from Icarus, the son of Daedalus in Greek mythology, who fell into the sea nearby.-History:Icaria has been inhabited since at least 7000 B.C...
PatmosPatmos is a small Greek island in the Aegean Sea. One of the northernmost islands of the Dodecanese complex, it has a population of 2,984 and an area of 34.05 km . The highest point is Profitis Ilias, 269 meters above sea level. The Municipality of Patmos, which includes the offshore islands of...
Naxos
MilosMilos , formerly known as Μῆλος – Melos, and before the Athenian massacre and recolonization in 416 BC as Μάλος – Malos, is a volcanic Greek island in the Sea of Crete, just south of the Aegean Sea....
SantoriniSantorini is a small, circular archipelago of volcanic islands located in the southern Aegean Sea, about southeast from Greece's mainland. The largest island is known as Thēra , forming the southernmost member of the Cyclades group of islands, with an area of approximately and a 2001 census...
KosKos or Cos is a Greek island in the south Sporades group of the Dodecanese, next to the Gulf of Gökova/Cos. It measures by , and is from the coast of Bodrum, Turkey and the ancient region of Caria. The island has both fertile plains and mountainous highlands with a population of 30,947...
RhodesRhodes is a Greek island approximately southwest of Turkey in eastern Aegean Sea...
KarpathosKarpathos is the second largest of the Greek Dodecanese islands, in the southeastern Aegean Sea. The island is comprised of the municipality of Karpathos plus the community of Olympos. Part of Olympos also extends north to the neighboring Saria Island...
Kassos
KythiraKythira is an island of Greece, historically part of the Ionian Islands. It lies opposite the eastern tip of the Peloponnese peninsula. It is administratively part of the Piraeus Prefecture although geographically distant from the prefecture's population center...
GavdosGavdos or Gávdhos is the southernmost Greek island, located to the south of its much bigger neighbour, Crete, of which it is administratively a part, in the prefecture of Chania. It forms a community with surrounding islets and is part of the former province of Selino. It is the southernmost point...
AegeanThe Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey respectively. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...
SeaThe Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey respectively. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...
Sea of CreteThe Sea of Crete is the sea south of the Aegean Sea, north of the island Crete, and south of the Cyclades. The sea also stretches from Kythera east to the Dodecanese islands of Karpathos and Kassos. The bounding seas to the west are the Ionian Sea as well as the rest of the Mediterranean Sea...
MyrtoanThe Myrtoan Sea is a subdivision of the Mediterranean Sea that lies between the Cyclades and the Peloponnesos...
SeaThe Myrtoan Sea is a subdivision of the Mediterranean Sea that lies between the Cyclades and the Peloponnesos...
IonianThe Ionian Sea is an arm of the Mediterranean Sea, south of the Adriatic Sea. It is bounded by southern Italy including Calabria, Sicily and the Salento peninsula to the west, and by southwestern Albania, including Saranda and Himara, and a large number of Greek islands, including Corfu, Zante,...
SeaThe Ionian Sea is an arm of the Mediterranean Sea, south of the Adriatic Sea. It is bounded by southern Italy including Calabria, Sicily and the Salento peninsula to the west, and by southwestern Albania, including Saranda and Himara, and a large number of Greek islands, including Corfu, Zante,...
MediterraneanThe Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by Africa, and on the east by the Levant. The sea is technically a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it...
SeaThe Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by Africa, and on the east by the Levant. The sea is technically a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it...
CreteCrete is the largest of the Greek islands and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km²...
AegeanThe Aegean Islands are a group of islands in the Aegean Sea, with mainland Greece to the west and north and Turkey to the east; the island of Crete delimits the sea to the south...
IslandsThe Aegean Islands are a group of islands in the Aegean Sea, with mainland Greece to the west and north and Turkey to the east; the island of Crete delimits the sea to the south...
CycladesThe Cyclades are a Greek island group in the Aegean Sea, south-east of the mainland of Greece; and an administrative prefecture of Greece. They are one of the island groups which constitute the Aegean archipelago. The name refers to the islands around the sacred island of Delos...
DodecaneseThe Dodecanese are a group of 12 larger plus 150 smaller Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, off the southwest coast of Turkey, southward of the island of Samos and northeastward of the island of Crete...
IonianThe Ionian Islands are a group of islands in Greece. They are traditionally called "Eptanisa", i.e...
IslandsThe Ionian Islands are a group of islands in Greece. They are traditionally called "Eptanisa", i.e...
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Greece consists of a mountainous, peninsular mainland jutting out into the sea at the southern end of the
BalkansThe Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
, the
PeloponnesusThe Peloponnese or Peloponnesus is a large peninsula and region in southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth...
peninsula (separated from the mainland by the
canalThe Corinth Canal is a canal that connects the Gulf of Corinth with the Saronic Gulf in the Aegean Sea. It cuts through the narrow Isthmus of Corinth and separates the Peloponnesian peninsula from the Greek mainland and therefore effectively making the former an island...
of the
Isthmus of CorinthThe Isthmus of Corinth is the narrow land bridge which connects the Peloponnese peninsula with the mainland of Greece, near the city of Corinth. The word "isthmus" comes from the Ancient Greek word for "neck" and refers to the narrowness of the land. To the west of the Isthmus is the Gulf of...
), and numerous islands (1400, 227 of which are inhabited), including
CreteCrete is the largest of the Greek islands and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km²...
,
EuboeaFor the mythological figure, see Euboea Euboea is the second largest Greek island in area and population, after Crete. It is separated from the mainland of Greece by the narrow Euripus Strait...
,
LesbosLesbos is a Greek island located in the northeastern Aegean Sea. It has an area of 1632 km² with 320 kilometres of coastline, making it the third largest Greek island and the largest of the numerous Greek islands scattered in the Aegean. Administratively, it forms part of the Lesbos Prefecture...
,
ChiosChios is the fifth largest of the Greek islands, situated in the Aegean Sea, seven kilometres off the Asia Minor coast. The island is noted for its strong merchant shipping community, its unique mastic gum and its medieval villages...
, the
DodecaneseThe Dodecanese are a group of 12 larger plus 150 smaller Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, off the southwest coast of Turkey, southward of the island of Samos and northeastward of the island of Crete...
and the
CycladicThe Cyclades are a Greek island group in the Aegean Sea, south-east of the mainland of Greece; and an administrative prefecture of Greece. They are one of the island groups which constitute the Aegean archipelago. The name refers to the islands around the sacred island of Delos...
groups of the
Aegean SeaThe Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey respectively. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...
as well as the
Ionian SeaThe Ionian Sea is an arm of the Mediterranean Sea, south of the Adriatic Sea. It is bounded by southern Italy including Calabria, Sicily and the Salento peninsula to the west, and by southwestern Albania, including Saranda and Himara, and a large number of Greek islands, including Corfu, Zante,...
islands. Greece has the
tenth longest coastline in the world with ; its land boundary is .
Eighty percent of Greece consists of mountains or hills, making the country one of the most mountainous in Europe. Mount Olympus, a focal point of Greek culture throughout history culminates at Mytikas peak , the highest in the country. Once considered the throne of the Gods, it is today extremely popular among hikers and climbers. Western Greece contains a number of lakes and wetlands and is dominated by the
PindusThe Pindus mountain range is located in northern Greece and southern Albania. It is roughly 160 km long, with a maximum elevation of 2637 m . Because it runs along the border of Thessaly and Epirus, the Pindus range is often called the "spine of Greece"...
mountain range. The Pindus reaches a maximum elevation of at Mt. Smolikas and is essentially a prolongation of the
Dinaric AlpsThe Dinaric Alps or Dinarides form a mountain chain in southern Europe, spanning areas of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, Albania and Montenegro...
. The Vikos-Aoos Gorge is yet another spectacular formation and a popular hotspot for those fond of extreme sports.
The range continues through the central
PeloponneseThe Peloponnese or Peloponnesus is a large peninsula and region in southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth...
, crosses the islands of Kythera and Antikythera and find its way into southwestern Aegean, in the island of
CreteCrete is the largest of the Greek islands and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km²...
where it eventually ends. The islands of the Aegean are peaks of underwater mountains that once constituted an extension of the mainland. Pindus is characterized by its high, steep peaks, often dissected by numerous canyons and a variety of other karstic landscapes. Most notably, the impressive
MeteoraThe Metéora is one of the largest and most important complexes of Eastern Orthodox monasteries in Greece, second only to Mount Athos. The six monasteries are built on natural sandstone rock pillars, at the northwestern edge of the Plain of Thessaly near the Peneios river and Pindus Mountains, in...
formation consisting of high, steep boulders provides a breathtaking experience for the hundreds of thousands of tourists who visit the area each year.
Northeastern Greece features another high-altitude mountain range, the Rhodope range, spreading across the periphery of
East Macedonia and ThraceEast Macedonia and Thrace is one of the thirteen peripheries of Greece, consisting of the eastern part of the region of Macedonia along with the region of Thrace...
; this area is covered with vast, thick, ancient forests. The famous Dadia forest is in the prefecture of
EvrosThe Evros Prefecture is the northernmost of the prefectures of Greece. It is located in the eastern and northeastern part of the region of Thrace, and borders Turkey at the Evros river. Evros borders Bulgaria to the north and the northwest. The Rhodope prefecture borders it to the west. Evros...
, in the far northeast of the country.
Expansive plains are primarily located in the prefectures of
ThessalyThessaly is one of the 13 peripheries of Greece, and is further sub-divided into 4 prefectures. The capital of the periphery and traditional geographical region is Larissa. Together with the regions of Macedonia and Thrace, it is often referred to unofficially as Northern Greece...
,
Central MacedoniaCentral Macedonia is one of the thirteen peripheries of Greece, consisting of the central part of the region of Macedonia. It is divided into the prefectures of Chalkidiki, Imathia, Kilkis, Pella, Pieria, Serres, and Thessaloniki...
and
ThraceThrace is a geographic and historical region of Greece, located between the Nestos and Evros rivers in the northeast of the country. Together with the regions of Macedonia and Epirus, it is often referred to informally as northern Greece...
. They constitute key economic regions as they are among the few arable places in the country. Rare marine species such as the Pinniped Seals and the
Loggerhead Sea TurtleThe Loggerhead Sea Turtle is a sea turtle and the only member of the genus Caretta. The genus name "Caretta" is a latinization of the French "caret", meaning turtle, tortoise, or sea turtle. A loggerhead sea turtle reportedly grows up to and long. Their shell color is a reddish brown color, and...
live in the seas surrounding mainland Greece, while its dense forests are home to the endangered
brown bearThe brown bear is a large bear distributed across much of northern Eurasia and North America. It weighs 100 to 680 kilograms and its largest subspecies, the Kodiak Bear, rivals the polar bear as the largest member of the bear family, and as the largest land based predator.While the brown...
, the
lynxA lynx is any of four big-sized wild cats. All are members of the genus Lynx, but there is considerable confusion about the best way to classify felids at present, and some authorities classify them as part of the genus Felis...
, the
Roe DeerThe European Roe Deer is a deer species of Europe, Asia Minor, and Caspian coastal regions. There is a separate species known as the Siberian Roe Deer that is found from the Ural Mountains to as far east as China and Siberia...
and the Wild Goat.
PhytogeographicallyPhytogeography, also called geobotany, is the branch of biogeography that is concerned with the geographic distribution of plant species, or more generally, plants...
, Greece belongs to the
Boreal KingdomThe Boreal Kingdom or Holarctic Kingdom is a floristic kingdom identified by botanist Ronald Good , which includes the temperate-to-arctic portions of North America and Eurasia. Its flora is inherited from the ancient supercontinent of Laurasia...
and is shared between the East Mediterranean province of the Mediterranean Region and the Illyrian province of the
Circumboreal RegionThe Circumboreal Region is a floristic region within the Holarctic Kingdom in Eurasia and North America, as delineated by such geobotanists as Josias Braun-Blanquet and Armen Takhtajan...
. According to the
World Wide Fund for NatureThe World Wide Fund for Nature is an international non-governmental organization working on issues regarding the conservation, research and restoration of the environment, formerly named the World Wildlife Fund, which remains its official name in the United States and Canada...
and the
European Environment AgencyEuropean Environment Agency , agency of the European Union devoted to establishing a monitoring network for the monitoring of the European environment...
, the territory of Greece can be subdivided into six
ecoregionAn ecoregion , sometimes called a bioregion, is an ecologically and geographically defined area smaller than a "realm" or "ecozone". Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and contain characteristic, geographically distinct assemblages of natural communities and species...
s: the
Illyrian deciduous forestsThe Illyrian deciduous forests form a terrestrial ecoregion of Europe according to both the WWF and Digital Map of European Ecological Regions by the European Environment Agency...
,
Pindus Mountains mixed forestsThe Pindus Mountains mixed forests constitute a terrestrial ecoregion of Europe according to both the WWF and Digital Map of European Ecological Regions by the European Environment Agency...
,
Balkan mixed forestsThe Balkan mixed forests constitute a terrestrial ecoregion of Europe according to both the WWF and Digital Map of European Ecological Regions by the European Environment Agency...
, Rodope montane mixed forests, Aegean and Western Turkey sclerophyllous and mixed forests and Crete Mediterranean forests.
Climate
The climate of Greece can be categorised into three types (the Mediterranean, the Alpine and the Temperate) that influence well-defined regions of its territory. The Pindus mountain range strongly affects the climate of the country by making the western side of it (areas prone to the south-westerlies) wetter on average than the areas lying to the east of it (lee side of the mountains). The Mediterranean type of climate features mild, wet winters and hot, dry summers. The Cyclades, the
DodecaneseThe Dodecanese are a group of 12 larger plus 150 smaller Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, off the southwest coast of Turkey, southward of the island of Samos and northeastward of the island of Crete...
,
CreteCrete is the largest of the Greek islands and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km²...
, Eastern Peloponessus and parts of the Sterea Ellada region are mostly affected by this particular type of climate. Temperatures rarely reach extreme values along the coasts, although, with Greece being a highly mountainous country, snowfalls occur frequently in winter. It sometimes snows even in the
CycladesThe Cyclades are a Greek island group in the Aegean Sea, south-east of the mainland of Greece; and an administrative prefecture of Greece. They are one of the island groups which constitute the Aegean archipelago. The name refers to the islands around the sacred island of Delos...
or the
DodecaneseThe Dodecanese are a group of 12 larger plus 150 smaller Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, off the southwest coast of Turkey, southward of the island of Samos and northeastward of the island of Crete...
.
The Alpine type is dominant mainly in the mountainous areas of Northwestern Greece (
EpirusEpirus , is a periphery in northwestern Greece. It borders the peripheries of West Macedonia and Thessaly to the east, West Greece to the south, the Ionian Sea and the Ionian Islands to the west and Albania to the north. The province has an area of about 9,200 km²...
,
Central GreeceContinental Greece or Central Greece , colloquially known as Roúmeli , is a geographical region of Greece. Its territory is divided into the peripheries of Central Greece, Attica, and one prefecture of West Greece...
,
ThessalyThessaly is one of the 13 peripheries of Greece, and is further sub-divided into 4 prefectures. The capital of the periphery and traditional geographical region is Larissa. Together with the regions of Macedonia and Thrace, it is often referred to unofficially as Northern Greece...
, Western Macedonia) as well as in the central parts of
PeloponneseThe Peloponnese or Peloponnesus is a large peninsula and region in southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth...
, including the prefectures of Achaia,
ArcadiaArcadia, Arkadía , or Arcady is a region of Greece in the Peloponnesus. It takes its name from the mythological character Arcas.-Modern times:...
and parts of
LaconiaLaconia , also known as Lacedaemonia, is a prefecture in Greece. Laconia has the legal status of a prefecture, with Sparti its administrative capital. Its main towns and cities are Amyclae, Areopolis, Gytheion, Molaoi, Monemvasia, Mystras, Neapoli and Sellasia...
, where extensions of the Pindus mountain range pass by. Finally, the Temperate type affects
Central MacedoniaCentral Macedonia is one of the thirteen peripheries of Greece, consisting of the central part of the region of Macedonia. It is divided into the prefectures of Chalkidiki, Imathia, Kilkis, Pella, Pieria, Serres, and Thessaloniki...
and
East Macedonia and ThraceEast Macedonia and Thrace is one of the thirteen peripheries of Greece, consisting of the eastern part of the region of Macedonia along with the region of Thrace...
; it features cold, damp winters and hot, dry summers. Athens is located in a transitional area featuring both the Mediterranean and the Temperate types. The city's northern suburbs are dominated by the temperate type while the downtown area and the southern suburbs enjoy a typical Mediterranean type.
Economy
Annual growth of Greek GDP has surpassed the respective levels of most of its EU partners. The tourism industry is a major source of foreign exchange earnings and revenue accounting for 15% of Greece’s total GDP and employing, directly or indirectly, 16.5% of the total workforce.
The Greek labor force totals 4.9 million, and it is the second most industrious between OECD countries, after
South KoreaSouth Korea, officially the Republic of Korea and often simply referred to as Korea, is a country in East Asia, located on the southern half of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by China to the west, Japan to the east, and North Korea to the north. Its capital is Seoul, the second largest...
. The
Groningen Growth & Development CentreThe University of Groningen , located in the city of Groningen, was founded in 1614. It is one of the oldest universities in the world and one of the largest universities in the Netherlands. Since its inception more than 100,000 students have graduated...
has published a poll revealing that between 1995 and 2005, Greece was the country with the largest work/hour ratio among European nations; Greeks worked an average of 1,900 hours per year, followed by the Spanish (average of 1,800 hours/year). In 2007, the average worker made around 20 dollars, similar to Spain and slightly more than half of average U.S. hourly income. Immigrants make up nearly one-fifth of the work force, occupied mainly in agricultural and construction work.
Greece's purchasing power-adjusted GDP per capita is the world's 28th highest. According to the
International Monetary FundThe International Monetary Fund is an international organization that oversees the global financial system by following the macroeconomic policies of its member countries, in particular those with an impact on exchange rates and the balance of payments...
it has an estimated average per capita income of $30,661 for the year 2008, comparable to that of Germany, France or Italy. According to
EurostatEurostat is a Directorate-General of the European Commission located in Luxembourg. Its main responsibilities are to provide the European Union with statistical information at European level and to promote the harmonisation of statistical methods across the Member States of the European Union,...
data, Greek PPS GDP per capita stood at 95 per cent of the EU average in 2008. Greece ranks 18th in the 2006
HDIThe Human Development Index is an index used to rank countries by level of "human development", which usually also implies whether a country is developed, developing, or underdeveloped.-Summary:...
, 22nd on
The EconomistThe Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in an office in the City of Westminster, London. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843. While The Economist calls itself a...
's 2005 worldwide quality-of-life index. According to a survey by the Economist, the cost of living in Athens is close to 90% of the costs in New York; in rural regions it is lower.
Maritime industry
The shipping industry is a key element of Greek economic activity dating back to ancient times. Today, shipping is one of the country's most important industries. It accounts for 4.5% of
GDPThe gross domestic product or gross domestic income is a basic measure of a country's economic performance and is the market value of all final goods and services made within the borders of a country in a year...
, employs about 160,000 people (4% of the workforce), and represents 1/3 of the country's trade deficit.
During the 1960s, the size of the Greek fleet nearly doubled, primarily through the investment undertaken by the shipping magnates
OnassisAristotle Sokratis "Ari"/"Aristo" Onassis was a very prominent Greek shipping magnate of the 20th century...
and
NiarchosStavros Spyros Niarchos was a billionaire Greek shipping tycoon, sometimes known as "The Golden Greek." In 1952, Stavros Niarchos built the first supertankers capable of transporting large quantities of oil, and subsequently earned millions of dollars as global demand for his ships...
. The basis of the modern Greek maritime industry was formed after
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
when Greek shipping businessmen were able to amass surplus ships sold to them by the United States Government through the Ship Sales Act of the 1940s. According to the
BTSThe Bureau of Transportation Statistics , as part of the United States Department of Transportation, compiles, analyzes, and makes accessible information on the nation's transportation systems; collects information on intermodal transportation and other areas as needed; and improves the quality and...
, the Greek-owned maritime fleet is today the largest in the world, with 3,079 vessels accounting for 18% of the world's fleet capacity (making it the largest of any other country) with a total dwt of 141,931 thousand (142 million dwt). In terms of ship categories, Greece ranks first in both
tankersA tank ship or tankship, often referred to as a tanker, is a ship designed to transport liquids in bulk. Major types of tankship include the oil tanker, the chemical tanker, and the liquefied natural gas carrier.-Background:...
and dry
bulk carrierA bulk carrier, bulk freighter, or bulker is a merchant ship specially designed to transport unpackaged bulk cargo, such as grains, coal, ore, and cement in its cargo holds. Since the first specialized bulk carrier was built in 1852, economic forces have fueled the development of these ships,...
s, fourth in the number of
containersContainer ships are cargo ships that carry all of their load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. They form a common means of commercial intermodal freight transport.- History :...
, and fourth in other ships. However, today's fleet roster is smaller than an all-time high of 5,000 ships in the late 70's.
Tourism
An important percentage of Greece's income comes from tourism. In 2004 Greece welcomed 16.5 million tourists. According to a survey conducted in
ChinaChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
in 2005, Greece was voted as the Chinese people's number one choice as a tourist destination, and 6,088,287 tourists visited only the city of
AthensAthens , the capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the world's oldest cities, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
, the capital city. In November 2006, Austria, like China, announced that Greece was the favourite destination.
Numismatics
In Greece, the
euroThe euro is the official currency of 16 of the 27 Member States of the European Union . The states, known collectively as the Eurozone, are Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain...
was introduced in 2002. As a preparation for this date, the minting of the new euro coins started as early as 2001, however all Greek euro coins introduced in 2002 have this year on it; unlike other countries of the
EurozoneThe eurozone is an economic and monetary union of 16 European Union member states which have adopted the euro currency as their sole legal tender. It currently consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal,...
where mint year is minted in the coin. Eight different designs, one per face value, was selected for the Greek coins. In 2007, in order to adopt the new common map like the rest of the Eurozone countries, Greece changed the common side of their coins. Before adopting the Euro in 2002 Greece had maintained use of the
Greek drachmaDrachma, pl. drachmas or drachmae is the name of the currency used in Greece during several periods in its history:...
from 1832.
Greece has one of the richest collections of collectors' coins in the Eurozone, with face value ranging from 10 to 200 euro, mainly issued to commemorate the 2004 Summer Olympics. These coins are a legacy of an old national practice of minting of silver and gold commemorative coins. Unlike normal issues, these coins are not legal tender in all the eurozone. For instance, a €10 Greek commemorative coin cannot be used in any other country.
Transport
Since the 1980s, the roads and rail network of Greece has been significantly modernised. Important works include the
Egnatia highwayEgnatia Odos is the Greek part of the European route E90. It is a motorway in Greece that extends from the western port of Igoumenitsa to the eastern Greek-Turkish border at Kipoi. It runs a total of 670km...
that connects north west Greece (
IgoumenitsaIgoumenitsa , is a coastal city in northwestern Greece. It is the capital of the prefecture Thesprotia. Its original ancient name used to be Titani....
) with northern and north west Greece. The
Rio-Antirio bridgeThe Rio-Antirrio bridge , officially the Charilaos Trikoupis bridge after the statesman who first envisioned it, is a cable-stayed bridge crossing the Gulf of Corinth near Patras, linking the town of Rio on the Peloponnese to Antirrio on mainland Greece.-Name:Its official name is the Charilaos...
(the longest suspension cable bridge in Europe) (2250 m long) connects the western Peloponnesus from
RioRio is a suburban town north of Patras, Greece, with a population of around 13,000. Downtown is about 7 km N of Patras from GR-8. Elevation is about 10 m downtown, and 20 to 50 m in its east. Many of the houses are lined up between the beach, the rail and the freeway...
(7 km from
PatrasPatras is Greece's third largest urban centre and the capital of the prefecture of Achaea, located in northern Peloponnese, 215 kilometers west of Athens...
) with Antirion on the central Greek mainland. An expansion of the Patras-Athens national motorway towards Pyrgos in the western Peloponnese is scheduled to be completed by 2014. Most of the highway connection of Athens to Thessaloniki has also been upgraded.
The metropolitan area of the capital Athens had a new international airport (opened in 2001), a new privately run suburban motorway
Attiki OdosAttiki Odos is a private-owned toll motorway in Greece. The Proastiakos high-speed suburban rail is almost entirely in the median through the main section. Its numbers are 6 for the main section, 64 for Imittos Ring and 65 for Aigaleo Ring. They are the outer ring roads of Greater Athens...
(opened 2001), and an expanded
metro systemThe Athens Metro is an underground rapid transit system serving Athens. It is constructed and owned by Attiko Metro S.A. and operated by Attiko Metro Etaireia Leitourgias S.A. ....
(since 2000).
Most of the Greek islands and many main cities of Greece are connecting by air mainly from the two major airlines of Greece, Olympic and Aegean air. Maritime connections have been improved with modern high-speed craft, including hydrofoils and catamarans. Railway connections play a somewhat lesser role than in many other European countries, but railways too have been expanded, with new suburban connections around Athens, a modern intercity connection between Athens and Thessaloniki, and upgrading to double lines in many parts of the 2500 km network. International railway lines connect Greek cities with the rest of Europe, the
BalkansThe Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
and
TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey
, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe...
.
Demographics
The official Statistical body of Greece is the
National Statistical Service of GreeceThe National Statistical Service of Greece is a General Secretariat of the Greek Ministry of Economy and Finance with more than 1100 employees.The main user of NSSG's data is the Greek state...
(NSSG). According to the NSSG, Greece's total population in 2001 was 10,964,020. That figure is divided into 5,427,682 males and 5,536,338 females. As statistics from 1971, 1981, and 2001 show, the Greek population has been aging the past several decades. The birth rate in 2003 stood 9.5 per 1,000 inhabitants (14.5 per 1,000 in 1981). At the same time the mortality rate increased slightly from 8.9 per 1,000 inhabitants in 1981 to 9.6 per 1,000 inhabitants in 2003. In 2001, 16.71% of the population were 65 years old and older, 68.12% between the ages of 15 and 64 years old, and 15.18% were 14 years old and younger. Greek society has also rapidly changed with the passage of time. Marriage rates kept falling from almost 71 per 1,000 inhabitants in 1981 until 2002, only to increase slightly in 2003 to 61 per 1,000 and then fall again to 51 in 2004. Divorce rates on the other hand, have seen an increase – from 191.2 per 1,000 marriages in 1991 to 239.5 per 1,000 marriages in 2004. Almost two-thirds of the
Greek peopleThe Greeks , also known as Hellenes, are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighbouring regions, who can also be found in diaspora communities around the world....
live in urban areas. Greece's largest municipalities in 2001 were:
AthensAthens , the capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the world's oldest cities, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
,
ThessalonikiThessaloniki , Thessalonica, or Salonica is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the Greek region of Macedonia. It is honorarily called the Συμπρωτεύουσα Symprotevousa of Greece, as it was once called the συμβασιλεύουσα symvasilevousa of the Byzantine Empire...
,
PiraeusPiraeus is a city in the periphery of Attica, Greece, and a municipality within Athens urban area, located 10 km southwest of its center....
,
PatrasPatras is Greece's third largest urban centre and the capital of the prefecture of Achaea, located in northern Peloponnese, 215 kilometers west of Athens...
, Iraklio,
LarissaLarissa is a city and the capital of the Thessaly periphery of Greece, and capital of the Larissa Prefecture. It is a principal agricultural centre and a national transportation hub, linked by rail with the port of Volos and with Thessaloniki and Athens...
, and
VolosVolos is a coastal port city situated at the center of the Greek mainland, about 326 km north from Athens and 215 km south from Thessaloniki...
.
Throughout the 20th century, millions of Greeks migrated to the US, Australia, Canada, UK and Germany, creating a thriving
Greek diasporaThe Greek diaspora is a term used to refer to the communities of Greek people living outside of the traditional Greek homelands, but more commonly in southeast Europe and Asia Minor. Members of the diaspora can be identified as those who themselves, or whose ancestors, migrated from the Greek...
The migration trend however has now been reversed after the important improvements of the Greek economy since the 80's.
Immigration
Due to the complexity of Greek immigration policy, practices and data collection, truly reliable data on
immigrant populationsDuring the military dictatorship , labour immigrants were recruited, mostly from Egypt, and in the 1980s Filipina nurses were also directly recruited. These were followed in the late 1980s by political refugees from various Eastern European countries and Kurds from Turkey...
in Greece is difficult to gather and therefore subject to much speculation. In 1986, legal and unauthorized immigrants totaled approximately 90,000. A study from the
Mediterranean Migration Observatory maintains that the 2001 Census from the NSSG recorded 762,191 persons residing in Greece without Greek citizenship, constituting around 7% of total population and that, of these, 48,560 were EU or
EFTAEFTA may refer to:* European Family Therapy Association, an NGO.* European Fair Trade Association, an association of eleven Fair Trade importers in nine European countries....
nationals and 17,426 Cypriots with privileged status. People from the Balkan countries of Albania, Bulgaria, and Romania make up almost two-thirds of the total foreign population. Migrants from the former Soviet Union (Georgia, Russia, Ukraine, Moldava, etc.) comprise 10% of the total.
The greatest cluster of non-EU immigrant population is in the Municipality of Athens –some 132,000 immigrants, at 17% of local population. Thessaloniki is the second largest cluster, with 27,000, reaching 7% of local population. After this, the predominant areas of location are the big cities environs and the agricultural areas. At the same time,
AlbaniansAlbanians are a people from southeast Europe who live in Albania and neighboring countries. They speak the Albanian language. About half of them live in Albania, with other large groups residing in Kosovo, the Republic of Macedonia, Serbia, and Montenegro...
constituted some 56% of total immigrants, followed by
BulgariansThe Bulgarians are a South Slavic people, generally associated with the Republic of Bulgaria and the Bulgarian language. Emigration has resulted in Bulgarian minorities or immigrant communities in a number of other countries.-Ethnogenesis:...
(5%),
GeorgiansThe Georgians are a South Caucasian people and nation mainly centered in Georgia. They also live in Turkey, Russia, the United States, Iran, and other countries....
(3%) and
RomaniansThe Romanians are a nation and ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian ; they are the majority inhabitants of România.In one prominent interpretation of the census results in Moldova, Moldovans are counted as Romanians, which would...
(3%). Americans, Cypriots, British and Germans appeared as sizeable foreign communities at around 2% each of total foreign population. The rest were around 690,000 persons of non-EU or non-homogeneis (of non-Greek heritage) status.
According to the same study, the foreign population (documented and undocumented) residing in Greece may in reality figure upwards to 8.5% or 10.3%, that is approximately meaning 1.15 million – if immigrants with
homogeneis cards are accounted for.
Religion
The constitution of Greece recognizes the Greek Orthodox faith as the "prevailing" religion of the country, while guaranteeing freedom of religious belief for all. The Greek Government does not keep statistics on religious groups and censuses do not ask for religious affiliation. According to the State Department, an estimated 97% of Greek citizens identify themselves as
Greek OrthodoxThe Greek Orthodox Church is the body of several churches within the larger communion of the Orthodox Church, sharing a common cultural tradition and whose liturgy is traditionally conducted in Koine Greek, the original language of the New Testament....
. However, in the
EurostatEurostat is a Directorate-General of the European Commission located in Luxembourg. Its main responsibilities are to provide the European Union with statistical information at European level and to promote the harmonisation of statistical methods across the Member States of the European Union,...
–
EurobarometerEurobarometer is a series of surveys regularly performed on behalf of the European Commission since 1973. It produces reports of public opinion of certain issues relating to the European Union across the member states...
poll of 2005, 81% of Greek citizens responded that they
believe there is a God, which was the third highest percentage among
EUThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 Member States, located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community...
members behind only
MaltaMalta , officially the Republic of Malta , is a densely populated developed European country in the European Union. The Southern European island nation is an archipelago that includes the inhabited islands of Malta, Gozo and Comino, along with a number of smaller, uninhabited islands...
and