Greece Travel Guide Greece is a country in southeastern Europe with thousands of islands throughout the Aegean and Ionian seas. Greece is a Member-State of the European Union and uses its uniform currency – the Euro. Athens is the nation's capital and largest city, followed by Thessaloniki. Greece Travel Guide Greece is strategically located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece consists of nine geographic regions: Macedonia, Central Greece, the Peloponnese, Thessaly, Epirus, the Aegean Islands (including the Dodecanese and Cyclades), Thrace, Crete, and the Ionian Islands. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of the mainland, the Ionian Sea to the west, the Cretan Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece Travel Guide Greece is considered the cradle of Western civilization, being the birthplace of democracy, Western philosophy, the Olympic Games, Western literature, historiography, political science, major scientific and mathematical principles, and Western drama. Greece Travel Guide Greece is a democratic and developed country with an advanced high-income economy, a high quality of life, and a very high standard of living. Greece was the tenth member to join the European Communities (precursor to the European Union) and has been part of the Eurozone since 2001. Greece Travel Guide The names for the nation of Greece and the Greek people differ from the names used in other languages, locations and cultures. Although the Greeks call the country Hellas or Ellada and its official name is the Hellenic Republic, in English it is referred to as Greece. Greece is home to the first advanced civilizations in Europe and is considered the birthplace of Western civilization. Greece Travel Guide Greece is a transcontinental country that consists of a mountainous, peninsular mainland jutting out into the sea at the southern end of the Balkans, ending at the Peloponnese peninsula (separated from the mainland by the canal of the Isthmus of Corinth) and strategically located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Due to its highly indented coastline and numerous islands, Greece has the 11th longest coastline in the world. Eighty percent of Greece consists of mountains or hills, making the country one of the most mountainous in Europe. Mount Olympus, the mythical abode of the Greek Gods, culminates at Mytikas peak the highest in the country. Western Greece contains a number of lakes and wetlands and is dominated by the Pindus mountain range. Greece Travel Guide Greece has an extremely large number of islands. The largest Greek island by area is Crete, located at the southern edge of the Aegean Sea. The second largest island is Euboea, which is separated from the mainland by the 60m-wide Euripus Strait, and is administered as part of the Central Greece region. After the third and fourth largest Greek Islands, Lesbos and Rhodes, the rest of the islands are two-thirds of the area of Rhodes, or smaller. Greece Travel Guide The Greek islands are traditionally grouped into the following clusters: The Argo-Saronic Islands in the Saronic gulf near Athens, the Cyclades, a large but dense collection occupying the central part of the Aegean Sea, the North Aegean islands, a loose grouping off the west coast of Turkey, the Dodecanese, another loose collection in the southeast between Crete and Turkey, the Sporades, a small tight group off the coast of Euboea, and the Ionian Islands, located to the west of the mainland in the Ionian Sea (one of these islands, Kythira, is off the southern tip of the Peloponnese Peninsula and part of the Attica region, but still considered part of the Ionian Islands, mainly because of historical reasons). There are also many islands, islets and rocks that surround the coast of Crete. Greece Travel Guide The climate of Greece is primarily Mediterranean, featuring mild, wet winters and hot, dry summers. This climate occurs at all coastal locations, including Athens, the Cyclades, the Dodecanese, Crete, the Peloponnese, the Ionian Islands and parts of the Central Continental Greece region. The Pindus mountain range strongly affects the climate of the country, as areas to the west of the range are considerably wetter on average (due to greater exposure to south-westerly systems bringing in moisture) than the areas lying to the east of the range (due to a rain shadow effect). Greece Travel Guide The mountainous areas of Northwestern Greece (parts of Epirus, Central Greece, Thessaly, Western Macedonia) as well as in the mountainous central parts of Peloponnese – including parts of the regional units of Achaea, Arcadia and Laconia – feature an Alpine climate with heavy snowfalls. The inland parts of northern Greece, in Central Macedonia and East Macedonia and Thrace feature a temperate climate with cold, damp winters and hot, dry summers with frequent thunderstorms. Greece Travel Guide

• published: 09 Apr 2017
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