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Feb 24, 2021 · Greece is located in south eastern region of the European continent, on the far southern edge of the Balkan Peninsula. Greece lies at the juncture of the continents of Europe, Asia and Africa. It is positioned both in the Northern and Eastern hemispheres of the Earth. Greece is bordered by 4 Nations: by North Macedonia and Bulgaria in the north ...
- Athens
- Hellenic Republic
- 130,647.00 km 2
- 131,957.00 km 2
Greece, [a] officially the Hellenic Republic, [b] is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, Greece shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the east. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of the mainland, the Ionian Sea to the west, and the ...
- Overview
- Land
- Relief
Greece, the southernmost of the countries of the Balkan Peninsula. Geography has greatly influenced the country’s development. Mountains historically restricted internal communications, but the sea opened up wider horizons. The total land area of Greece (one-fifth of which is made up of the Greek islands) is comparable in size to England or the U.S. state of Alabama.
Greece has more than 2,000 islands, of which about 170 are inhabited; some of the easternmost Aegean islands lie just a few miles off the Turkish coast. The country’s capital is Athens, which expanded rapidly in the second half of the 20th century. Attikí (ancient Greek: Attica), the area around the capital, is now home to about one-third of the country’s entire population.
A Greek legend has it that God distributed soil through a sieve and used the stones that remained to build Greece. The country’s barren landscape historically caused the people to migrate. The Greeks, like the Jews and the Armenians, traditionally have been a people of diaspora, and several million people of Greek descent live in various parts of the world. Xeniteia, or sojourning in foreign lands, with its strong overtones of nostalgia for the faraway homeland, has been a central element in the historical experience of the Greek people.
Greece is a country that is at once European, Balkan, Mediterranean, and Near Eastern. It lies at the juncture of Europe, Asia, and Africa and is heir to the heritages of Classical Greece, the Byzantine Empire, and nearly four centuries of Ottoman Turkish rule.
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Greece is bordered to the east by the Aegean Sea, to the south by the Mediterranean Sea, and to the west by the Ionian Sea. Only to the north and northeast does it have land borders (totaling some 735 miles [1,180 km]), with, from west to east, Albania, the Republic of North Macedonia (see Researcher’s Note: Macedonia: the provenance of the name), ...
Three characteristics of geology and structure underlie these landscape elements. First, northeastern Greece is occupied by a stable block of ancient (Hercynian) hard rock. Second, younger and weaker rocks, the majority of which are of limestone origin, make up western and southern Greece. These were heavily folded during the Alp-building phase of the Paleogene and Neogene periods (about 66 to 2.6 million years ago), when Earth movements thrust the softer sediments east-northeast against the unyielding Hercynian block and produced a series of roughly parallel tectonic zones that gave rise to the mountain-and-valley relief. Third, both the Hercynian block and the Hellenidic (Alpine) ranges were subsequently raised and fractured by tectonic movements. These dislocations created the sunken basins of the Ionian and Aegean seas as well as the jagged edges so typical of Greece’s landscape. Earthquakes are frequent reminders that similar earth movements continue, particularly along the major fault lines. One result of the region’s geologic instability is the widespread presence of marble, which is limestone that has been altered by pressure and heat. Seismic disturbances are sometimes associated with volcanic explosions, especially those involving the island of Thíra (ancient Greek: Thera; also called Santoríni), which was virtually destroyed by a major eruption in the 2nd millennium bce. The vents of the Kaméni islands in the sea-filled explosion crater of Thíra remain active. The island of Mílos (Melos), which rises to 2,465 feet (751 metres) above sea level, is composed of young volcanic rocks.
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Relief and geology provide the basis for describing the Greek landscape in terms of six major regions: central, northeastern, eastern, southern, and western mainland Greece, along with the islands.
Topographic map of Greece. Greece is located in South Eastern Europe, bordering the Ionian Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. It is a peninsular country, with an archipelago of about 3,000 islands. It has a total area of 131,957 km 2 (50,949 sq mi), of which land area is 130,647 km 2 and internal waters (lakes and rivers) account for 1,310 km 2.
1 day ago · Greece and the Aegean Sea. Aegean Sea, an arm of the Mediterranean Sea located between the Greek peninsula on the west and Asia Minor on the east. About 380 miles (612 km) long and 186 miles (299 km) wide, it has a total area of some 83,000 square miles (215,000 square km). The Aegean is connected through the straits of the Dardanelles, the Sea ...
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
1 day ago · Asia. Asia, the world’s largest and most diverse continent. It occupies the eastern four-fifths of the giant Eurasian landmass. Asia is more a geographic term than a homogeneous continent, and the use of the term to describe such a vast area always carries the potential of obscuring the enormous diversity among the regions it encompasses.
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Nov 29, 2023 · Description: This map shows where Greece is located on the World Map. ... Europe Map; Asia Map; Africa Map; North America Map; South America Map; Oceania Map; Popular ...
