Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country located mostly on the Balkan peninsula of Southeastern Europe, with thousands of islands extending geographically to Asia Minor. It has a population of around 10 million. With nine regions and up to 227 inhabited islands, it has the longest coastline on the Mediterranean basin. The Ionian Sea is west of the mainland, Albania northwest, and North Macedonia and Bulgaria north. Turkey is east both by land and the Aegean Sea. The capital, Athens, is the largest Greek city, followed by Thessaloniki and Patras.
At the crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa, Greece is often considered the cradle of Western civilisation, Western philosophy, and Western literature, but also had a profound influence on the Eastern world, including on Egypt, Iran, Anatolia, India, and later on the Islamic world. Through the Ancient Greeks, Greece is the birthplace of democracy, historiography, political science, major scientific and mathematical principles, theatre, and the Olympic Games. The Ancient Greeks were organised into independent city-states, or poleis (sing. polis), that spanned the Mediterranean and Black seas. Philip II of Macedon united most of present-day Greece in the fourth century BC, with his son Alexander the Great conquering much of the known ancient world from the Near East to northwestern India. The subsequent Hellenistic period saw the height of Greek culture and influence in antiquity. Greece was annexed by Rome in the second century BC and became an integral part of the Roman Empire and its continuation, the Byzantine Empire, where Greek culture and language were dominant. The Greek Orthodox Church helped shape modern Greek identity and transmitted Greek traditions to the wider Orthodox world.
After the Fourth Crusade in 1204, Greece and the rest of the Byzantine empire were fragmented into several Latin and Byzantine successor polities, with most Greek lands finally coming under Ottoman control by the mid-15th century. Following a protracted war of independence in 1821, Greece emerged as a modern nation state in 1830, but was challenged by most Greeks living outside its borders. The Kingdom of Greece pursued territorial expansion during the Balkan Wars (1912–1913) and World War I (1914–1918), until its defeat in the Greco-Turkish War in 1922. A short-lived republic was established in 1924 but faced civil strife and the challenge of resettling refugees from Turkey, culminating in a royalist dictatorship in 1936. Greece endured military occupation during World War II, the subsequent Greek Civil War, and prolonged political instability, leading to a military dictatorship in 1967. The country began transitioning to democracy in 1974, leading to the current parliamentary republic.
Owing to record economic growth from 1950 to 1973, Greece is a developed country with an advanced high-income economy and a high standard of living. Shipping and tourism are major economic sectors, with Greece being the ninth most-visited country in 2024. Greece is part of multiple international organisations and forums, being the tenth member to join what is today the European Union in 1981. The country's rich historical legacy is reflected partly by its 21 UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Name
The native name of the country in Modern Greek is Ελλάδα (Elládaⓘ, pronounced [eˈlaða]ⓘ). The corresponding form in Ancient Greek and conservative formal Modern Greek (Katharevousa) is Ἑλλάς (Hellas, classical: [hel.lás], modern: [eˈlas]). This is the source of the English alternative name Hellas, which is mostly found in archaic or poetic contexts today. The Greek adjectival form ελληνικός (ellinikos, [eliniˈkos]) is sometimes also translated as Hellenic and is often rendered in this way in the formal names of Greek institutions, as in the official name of the Greek state, the Hellenic Republic (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία, [eliniˈci ðimokraˈti.a]).
The Apidima Cave in Mani, in southern Greece, has been suggested to contain the oldest remains of early modern humans outside of Africa, dated to 200,000 years ago. However others suggest the remains represent archaic humans. All three stages of the Stone Age are represented in Greece, for example in the Franchthi Cave. Neolithic settlements in Greece, dating from the 7th millennium BC, are the oldest in Europe, as Greece lies on the route by which farming spread from the Near East to Europe.
By 500 BC, the Persian Empire controlled the Greek city states in Asia Minor and Macedonia. Attempts by Greek city-states of Asia Minor to overthrow Persian rule failed, and Persia invaded the states of mainland Greece in 492 BC, but was forced to withdraw after defeat by Athens at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC. In response, a number of Greek city-states formed the Hellenic League in 481 BC, led by Sparta, which was the first recorded union of Greek states since the mythical union of the Trojan War. After the death of Leonidas at the battle of Thermopylae, during the second Persian invasion of Greece, the Achaemenid navy was decisively defeated in 480 BC at Salamis by an allied Greek navy led by Themistocles, and the Achaemenid army was finally defeated at Plataea in 479 BC, marking the eventual withdrawal of the Persians from all their European territories. The Greek victories in the Greco-Persian Wars are a pivotal moment in history, as the 50 years of peace afterwards are known as the Golden Age of Athens, a seminal period that laid many foundations of Western civilisation. Lack of political unity resulted in frequent conflict between Greek states. The most devastating intra-Greek war was the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), which marked the demise of the Athenian Empire and the emergence of Spartan and later Theban hegemony. Weakened by constant wars among them during the 4th century BC, the Greek poleis were subjugated to the rising power of the Argeadkingdom of Macedon under king Philip II into an alliance known as the Hellenic League.
In 280 BC Pyrrhus of Epirus campaigned in Italy against the Romans in order to help Tarentum. From about 200 BC the Roman Republic became increasingly involved in Greek affairs and engaged in a series of wars with Macedon. Macedon's defeat at the Battle of Pydna in 168 BC signalled the end of Antigonid power. In 146 BC, Macedonia was annexed as a province by Rome, and the rest of Greece became a Roman protectorate. The process was completed in 27 BC, when emperor Augustus annexed the rest of Greece and constituted it as the senatorial province of Achaea. Despite their military superiority, the Romans admired and became heavily influenced by Greek culture.
Greek-speaking communities of the Hellenised East were instrumental in the spread of Christianity in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, and Christianity's early leaders and writers were mostly Greek-speaking, though not from Greece itself. The New Testament was written in Greek, and some sections attest to the importance of churches in Greece in early Christianity. Nevertheless, much of Greece clung to paganism, and ancient Greek religious practices were still in vogue in the late 4th century AD, when they were outlawed by the Roman emperor Theodosius I in 391–392. The last recorded Olympic games were held in 393, and many temples were destroyed or damaged in the century that followed. The closure of the Neoplatonic Academy of Athens by Emperor Justinian in 529 is considered the end of antiquity, although there is evidence that the academy continued.
Medieval period (4th–15th centuries)
The Roman Empire in the east, following the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, is known as the Byzantine Empire, but called "Kingdom of the Romans" in its own time. With its capital in Constantinople, its language and culture were Greek and its religion was predominantly Eastern Orthodox Christian. Byzantine Greeks self-identified as Rhōmaîoi (Ῥωμαῖοι, "Romans", a term which in the Greek language had become synonymous with Christian Greeks).
The Empire's Balkan territories, including Greece, suffered from the dislocation of barbarian invasions; raids by Goths and Huns in the 4th and 5th centuries and the Slavic invasion in the 7th century resulted in a collapse in imperial authority in the Greek peninsula. The imperial government retained control of only the islands and coastal areas, particularly the populated walled cities such as Athens, Corinth and Thessalonica. However, the view that Greece underwent decline, fragmentation and depopulation is considered outdated, as cities show institutional continuity and prosperity between the 4th and 6th centuries. In the early 6th century, Greece had approximately 80 cities according to the Synekdemos chronicle, and the 4th to the 7th century is considered one of high prosperity.
Until the 8th century, almost all of modern Greece was under the jurisdiction of the Holy See of Rome. Byzantine Emperor Leo III moved the border of the Patriarchate of Constantinople westward and northward in the 8th century. The Byzantine recovery of lost provinces during the Arab–Byzantine wars began in the 8th century. Most of the Greek peninsula also came under imperial control again. This process was facilitated by a large influx of Greeks from Sicily and Asia Minor to the Greek peninsula, while many Slavs were captured and resettled in Asia Minor.
During the late 9th, 10th, and early 11th centuries, under the Macedonian dynasty, the empire recovered lost territories and experienced a cultural revival in spheres such as philosophy and the arts. This period has been dubbed the "Golden Age" of Byzantium. During the 11th and 12th centuries, under the Komnenos dynasty, the return of stability resulted in the Greek peninsula benefiting from economic growth. The Greek Orthodox Church was instrumental in the spread of Greek ideas to the wider Orthodox world.
Constantinople was captured by the Fourth Crusade in 1204, becoming the capital of the Latin Empire, which briefly ruled much of the former Byzantine lands. Three Greek rump states–the Despotate of Epirus, the Empire of Nicaea, and the Empire of Trebizond–were established by fleeing Byzantine aristocrats who resisted the Latin rule. The recapture of Constantinople as the imperial capital in 1261 by the Empire of Nicaea was accompanied by the empire's recovery of much of the Greek peninsula, while the islands remained under Genoese and Venetian control. During the Paleologi dynasty (1261–1453), a new era of Greek patriotism emerged accompanied by a deliberate embrace of ancient Greek culture. In the 14th century much of the Greek peninsula was lost by the Byzantine Empire to the Serbs and then the Ottomans. Constantinople fell to the Ottomans in 1453 and by 1460, the Ottoman conquest of mainland Greece was complete.