Ten million people inherit the Mediterranean's longest coast
The Hellenic Republic occupies the Balkan peninsula's southern tip with about ten million people across nine regions and thousands of islands—the Mediterranean's longest coastline. Classical city-states bequeathed democracy, philosophy, theatre, and the Olympics to Western self-stories.
Greece's mainland borders Albania, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north and Turkey to the east, with the Ionian Sea to the west. Modern Greeks call their country Elláda; the ancient form Hellas survives in English mostly in poetry. The English word comes through Latin Graecia from the Graeci, one of the first Greek tribes to settle southern Italy.
Apidima Cave in the Mani may hold the oldest modern human remains outside Africa, around 200,000 years old, though some see them as archaic humans, and Franchthi Cave spans all three Stone Age stages. The Cycladic culture, known for folded-arm marble figurines, flourished in the Aegean from about 3200 BC, and Crete was a major centre from about 3100 to 1100 BC. After the Mycenaean collapse came a Dark Age without writing, conventionally ending with the first Olympic Games in 776 BC; Homer's epics are thought to date from the 8th or 7th century BC.
Persia, master of the Asian Greek cities and Macedonia by 500 BC, invaded the mainland in 492 BC and was beaten by Athens at Marathon in 490. Alexander, king after Philip's murder at Aigai in 336 BC, conquered the Persian Empire and reached the Hydaspes before dying in Babylon in 323. Rome crushed Macedon at Pydna in 168 BC and annexed it in 146. Greek-speaking communities helped spread Christianity, the New Testament was written in Greek, and the Byzantine Empire, Greek in speech, called itself the Kingdom of the Romans.
The Fourth Crusade shattered Byzantine lands in 1204, and most Greek territory was Ottoman by the mid-15th century. A war of independence from 1821 produced a modern state in 1830. Record growth from 1950 to 1973 built a high-income economy in which shipping and tourism loom large; Greece was the ninth most-visited country in 2024 and counts 21 UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Source: Greece
