Greece

The native name of the country in Modern Greek is Ελλάδα (, 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 English names Greece and Greek are derived, via the Latin Graecia and Graecus, from the name of the Graeci (Γραικοί, Graikoí), one of the first ancient Greek tribes to settle Magna Graecia in southern Italy.

=== Prehistory and Aegean civilisations ===

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.

Greece is home to the first advanced civilisations in Europe and is often considered the birthplace of Western civilisation. The earliest of them was the Cycladic culture which flourished on the islands of the Aegean Sea, starting around 3200 BC, and produced an abundance of folded-arm and other marble figurines. From c. 3100 BC to 1100 BC, Crete, a major cultural and economic centre, was home to the Minoan civilisation known for its colourful art, religious figurines, and monumental palaces. The Minoans wrote their undeciphered language using scripts known as Linear A and Cretan hieroglyphs. On the mainland, the Mycenaean civilisation developed around 1750 BC and lasted until c. 1100 BC. The Mycenaeans possessed an advanced military and built large fortifications. They worshipped many gods and used Linear B to write the earliest attested form of Greek known as Mycenaean Greek.

The collapse of the Mycenaean civilisation ushered in the Greek Dark Ages, from which written records are absent. The end of the Dark Ages is traditionally dated to 776 BC, the year of the first Olympic Games. The Iliad and the Odyssey, the foundational texts of Western literature, are believed to have been composed by Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BC. Poetry shaped beliefs to the Olympian gods, but ancient Greek religion had no priestly class or systematic dogmas and encompassed other currents, such as popular cults, like that of Dionysus, mysteries and magic. At this time, many kingdoms and city-states emerged across the Greek peninsula, some of which went on to establish a number of colonies in Asia Minor, the shores of the Black Sea, and southern Italy (also known as Magna Grecia). The Greek city-states reached great prosperity that resulted in an unprecedented cultural boom, that of classical Greece, expressed in architecture, drama, science, mathematics and philosophy. In 508 BC, Cleisthenes instituted the world's first democratic system of government in Athens.

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 Argead kingdom of Macedon under king Philip II into an alliance known as the Hellenic League.

After Philip's assassination at Aigai in 336 BC, his son Alexander became king of Macedon, established himself as leader of a Panhellenic campaign against the Persian Empire, and conquered it. Undefeated in battle, he marched to the banks of the Hydaspes, until his untimely death in 323 BC in Babylon. Alexander's empire fragmented, inaugurating the Hellenistic period. After fierce conflict amongst themselves, the generals that succeeded Alexander and their successors founded large personal kingdoms, such as that of the Ptolemies in Egypt, the Seleucids in Syria, Mesopotamia, Anatolia and Iran, Lysimachus in Thrace and Anatolia, Antigonids and Pyrrhus of Epirus in Greece. The newly founded poleis of these kingdoms, such as Alexandria and Antioch, were settled by Greeks as members of a ruling minority. As a result, during the centuries that followed a vernacular form of Greek, known as koine, and Greek culture was spread, while the Greeks adopted Eastern deities and cults. In India, the Indo-Greeks blended Greek and Buddhist religious practices and brought about an artistic renaissance that led to the creation of Greco-Buddhist art. Greek science, technology, and mathematics reached their peak during the Hellenistic period. Aspiring to maintain their autonomy and independence from the Macedonian Greek Antigonid kings and other Hellenistic kingdoms, many poleis of Greece united in koina or sympoliteiai i.e. federations, like the Aetolian and Achaean League, while after the establishment of economic relations with the East, a stratum of wealthy euergetai dominated their internal life.

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.

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.

During the 15th to early 19th centuries, while much of mainland Greece and the Aegean islands fell under Ottoman control, Venice retained several key territories. Notably, Crete remained under Venetian rule until 1669, and the Ionian Islands were governed by Venice until 1797. These islands were subsequently ceded to French and later British control. While some Greeks in the Ionian islands and Constantinople lived in prosperity, and Greeks of Constantinople (Phanariots) achieved power within the Ottoman administration, much of Greece suffered the economic consequences of Ottoman conquest. Heavy taxes were enforced, and in later years the Ottoman Empire enacted a policy of creation of hereditary estates, effectively turning the rural Greek populations into serfs, while the Ottoman conquest had cut Greece off from European historical developments.

The Greek Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople were considered by the Ottoman governments as the ruling authorities of the entire Orthodox Christian population of the Ottoman Empire, whether ethnically Greek or not. Although the Ottoman state did not force non-Muslims to convert to Islam, Christians faced discrimination. Discrimination, particularly when combined with harsh treatment by local Ottoman authorities, led to conversions to Islam, if only superficially. In the 19th century, many "crypto-Christians" returned to their old religious allegiance.

The nature of Ottoman administration of Greece varied, though it was invariably arbitrary and often harsh. Some cities had governors appointed by the Sultan, while others, like Athens, were self-governed municipalities. Mountainous regions in the interior and many islands remained effectively autonomous from the central Ottoman state for centuries. The 16th and 17th centuries are regarded as a "dark age" in Greek history. However, prior to the Greek Revolution of 1821, there had been wars which saw Greeks fight against the Ottomans, such as the Greek participation in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, the Morean War of 1684–1699, and the Russian-instigated Orlov revolt in 1770. These uprisings were put down by the Ottomans with great bloodshed. Many Greeks were conscripted as Ottoman subjects to serve in the Ottoman army and especially the navy, while the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, responsible for the Orthodox, remained in general loyal to the Empire.

==== Greek War of Independence (1821–1832) ====

In the 18th century, Greek merchants came to dominate trade within the Ottoman Empire, established communities throughout the Mediterranean, the Balkans, and Europe, and used their wealth to fund educational activities that brought younger generations into contact with Western ideas. In the 18th century, an increase in learning during the Modern Greek Enlightenment led to the emergence among Westernised Greek-speaking elites of the notion of a Greek nation. A secret organisation formed in this milieu was the Filiki Eteria, in 1814. They engaged traditional strata of the Greek Orthodox world in their liberal nationalist cause.

The first revolt began on 6 March 1821 in the Danubian Principalities, but was put down by the Ottomans. This spurred the Greeks of the Peloponnese and on 17 March the Maniots declared war on the Ottomans. By October 1821 the Greeks had captured Tripolitsa. There were revolts in Crete, Macedonia and Central Greece, which were suppressed. In 1822 and 1824 the Turks and Egyptians ravaged the islands, committing massacres. This galvanised opinion in western Europe in favour of the Greeks. The Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II negotiated with Mehmet Ali of Egypt, who agreed to send his son Ibrahim Pasha with an army, in return for territorial gain. By the end of 1825, most of the Peloponnese was under Egyptian control. Three great powers, France, Russian Empire, and the United Kingdom, each sent a navy. The allied fleet destroyed the Ottoman–Egyptian fleet at the Battle of Navarino, and the Greeks captured Central Greece by 1828. The nascent Greek state was recognised under the London Protocol in 1830.

In 1827, Ioannis Kapodistrias was chosen by the Third National Assembly at Troezen as the first governor of the First Hellenic Republic. Kapodistrias established state, economic and military institutions. Tensions appeared between him and local interests and, following his assassination in 1831 and the London Conference of 1832, Britain, France and Russia installed Bavarian Prince Otto von Wittelsbach as monarch. Otto's reign was despotic, and in its first 11 years of independence Greece was ruled by a Bavarian oligarchy led by Josef Ludwig von Armansperg and, later, by Otto himself, as King and Premier. Greece remained under the influence of its three protecting great powers. In 1843 an uprising forced Otto to grant a constitution and representative assembly.

Despite the absolutism of Otto's reign, it proved instrumental in developing institutions which are still the bedrock of Greek administration and education. Reforms were taken in education, maritime and postal communications, effective civil administration and the legal code. Historical revisionism took the form of de-Byzantinification and de-Ottomanisation, in favour of promoting Ancient Greek heritage. The capital was moved from Nafplio, where it had been since 1829, to Athens, then a smaller town. The Church of Greece was established as Greece's national church and 25 March, the day of Annunciation, was chosen as the anniversary of the Greek War of Independence to reinforce the link between Greek identity and Orthodoxy.

Otto was deposed in 1862 because of the Bavarian-dominated government, heavy taxation, and a failed attempt to annex Crete from the Ottomans. He was replaced by Prince Wilhelm of Denmark, who took the name George I and brought with him the Ionian Islands as a coronation gift from Britain. A new Constitution in 1864 changed Greece's form of government from constitutional monarchy to the more democratic crowned republic. In 1875 parliamentary majority as a requirement for government was introduced, curbing the power of the monarchy to appoint minority governments. Corruption, coupled with increased spending to fund infrastructure like the Corinth Canal, overtaxed the weak economy and forced the declaration of public insolvency in 1893.

Greeks were united, however, in their determination to liberate the Hellenic lands under Ottoman rule; the Cretan Revolt (1866–1869) had raised nationalist fervour. When war broke out between Russia and the Ottomans in 1877, Greek sentiment rallied to Russia, but Greece was too poor and concerned about British intervention, to enter the war. Greeks in Crete continued to stage revolts, and in 1897, the Greek government, bowing to popular pressure, declared war on the Ottomans. In the ensuing Greco-Turkish War of 1897, the badly trained and equipped Greek army was defeated. Through the intervention of the Great Powers, however, Greece lost little territory, while Crete was established as an autonomous state under Prince George of Greece. With state coffers empty, fiscal policy came under International Financial Control. The government, aiming to quell Komitadjis and detach the Slavophone peasants of the region from Bulgarian influence, sponsored a guerrilla campaign in Ottoman-ruled Macedonia, known as the Macedonian Struggle, which ended with the Young Turk Revolution in 1908.

Amidst dissatisfaction with the seeming inertia and unattainability of national aspirations, military officers organised a coup in 1909 and called on Cretan politician Eleftherios Venizelos, who conveyed a vision of national regeneration. After winning two elections and becoming prime minister in 1910, Venizelos initiated fiscal, social, and constitutional reforms, reorganised the military, made Greece a member of the Balkan League, and led it through the Balkan Wars. By 1913, Greece's territory and population had doubled, annexing Crete, Epirus, and Macedonia. The struggle between King Constantine I and charismatic Venizelos over foreign policy on the eve of the First World War dominated politics and divided the country into two opposing groups. During parts of the war, Greece had two governments: a royalist pro-German one in Athens and a Venizelist pro-Entente one in Thessaloniki. Greece was reunified in 1917 under Venizelos and entered the war on the side of the Entente.

After the war, Greece attempted expansion into Asia Minor, a region with a large native Greek population, but was defeated in the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922), contributing to a flight of Asia Minor Greeks. These events overlapped with the Greek genocide (1914–22), when Ottoman and Turkish officials contributed to the death of several hundred thousand Asia Minor Greeks, along with similar numbers of Assyrians and a larger number of Armenians. The resultant Greek exodus from Asia Minor was made permanent, and expanded, in an official population exchange between Greece and Turkey, as part of the Treaty of Lausanne which ended the war. The following era was marked by instability, as over 1.5 million propertyless Greek refugees from Turkey (some of whom could not speak Greek) had to be integrated into Greek society. The refugees made a dramatic population boost, as they were more than a quarter of Greece's prior population.

Following the catastrophic events in Asia Minor, the monarchy was abolished via a referendum in 1924 and the Second Hellenic Republic was declared. In 1935, a royalist general-turned-politician Georgios Kondylis took power after a coup and abolished the republic, holding a rigged referendum, after which King George II was restored to the throne.

An agreement between Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas and George II followed in 1936, which installed Metaxas as head of a dictatorship known as the 4th of August Regime, inaugurating authoritarian rule that would last until 1974. Greece remained on good terms with Britain and was not allied with the Axis.

In October 1940, Fascist Italy demanded the surrender of Greece, but it refused, and, in the Greco-Italian War, Greece repelled Italian forces into Albania. French general Charles de Gaulle praised the fierceness of the Greek resistance, but the country fell to urgently dispatched German forces during the Battle of Greece. The Nazis proceeded to administer Athens and Thessaloniki, while other regions were given to Fascist Italy and Bulgaria. Over 100,000 civilians died of starvation during the winter of 1941–42, tens of thousands more died because of reprisals by Nazis and collaborators, the economy was ruined, and most Greek Jews (tens of thousands) were deported and murdered in Nazi concentration camps. The Greek Resistance, mainly EAM-ELAS (being the largest organisation) and EDES, was one of the most effective resistance movements in Europe fighting against the Nazis. The German occupiers committed atrocities, mass executions, and wholesale slaughter of civilians and destruction of towns and villages in reprisals. Hundreds of villages were systematically torched and almost 1 million Greeks left homeless. The Germans executed around 21,000 Greeks, the Bulgarians 40,000, and the Italians 9,000.

Following liberation, Greece annexed the Dodecanese Islands from Italy and regained Western Thrace from Bulgaria. The country descended into a civil war between the communist forces and the anti-communist Greek government, which lasted until 1949, with the latter's victory. The conflict, one of the earliest struggles of the Cold War, resulted in further economic devastation, population displacement and political polarisation for the next thirty years.

Although the post-war period was characterised by social strife and marginalisation of the left, Greece experienced rapid economic growth and recovery, propelled in part by the U.S. Marshall Plan. In 1952, Greece joined NATO, reinforcing its membership in the Western Bloc of the Cold War. The post-war period was dominated by Konstantinos Karamanlis. Following his appointment as Prime Minister in October 1955, Karamanlis oversaw a period of rapid and sustained economic growth. Alongside key policymakers such as Georgios Kartalis and Spyros Markezinis, Karamanlis’s government pursued an activist state policy, investing heavily in public infrastructure and industrial development to propel Greece toward the status of a developed nation. Karamanlis advocated for Greece’s integration into the European Economic Community (EEC) and, in July 1961, Greece signed an agreement to join the bloc.

The Centre Union won a minority vote in the 1963 elections and formed a government in the 1964 elections. Prime Minister George Papandreou's relationship with the new King, Constantine II, deteriorated. Papandreou openly clashed with the King and resigned in July 1965. The latter lured in Centre Union members to form unelected coalition governments, resulting in prolonged political instability for the next two years that culminated in a coup in 1967 by a group of colonels led by Georgios Papadopoulos. Civil rights were suspended, political repression intensified, and human rights abuses, including torture, were rampant. Economic growth remained rapid before plateauing in 1972. The brutal suppression of the Athens Polytechnic uprising in 1973 set in motion the fall of the regime, resulting in a counter-coup that established brigadier Dimitrios Ioannidis as the new junta strongman. On 20 July 1974, Turkey invaded the island of Cyprus in response to a Greek-backed Cypriot coup, triggering a crisis in Greece that led to the regime's collapse and restoration of democracy through Metapolitefsi.

The former prime minister Konstantinos Karamanlis was invited back from self-exile and the first multiparty elections since 1964 were held on the first anniversary of the Polytechnic uprising. A democratic and republican constitution was promulgated in 1975 following a referendum which chose not to restore the monarchy.

Meanwhile, Andreas Papandreou, George Papandreou's son, founded the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) in response to Karamanlis's conservative New Democracy party, with the two political formations dominating government over the next four decades. Greece rejoined NATO in 1980. Greece became the tenth member of the European Communities in 1981, ushering in sustained growth. Investments in industrial enterprises and heavy infrastructure, as well as funds from the European Union and growing revenue from tourism, shipping, and a fast-growing service sector raised the standard of living. In 1981, Andreas Papandreou came to power and implemented an ambitious program of social reforms. He recognised civil marriage, the dowry was abolished, while expanding access to education and health care. However, he made controversial foreign policy decisions that fueled the rise of terrorism in Greece. Papandreou's tenure has been associated with corruption (see Koskotas and Yugoslav corn scandals) and the first constitutional crisis of the new republic, while his economic policies failed to address the persistent stagflation and chronic budget deficits that exacerbated Greece's economic problems.

The country adopted the euro in 2001 and successfully hosted the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens. In 2010, Greece suffered from the Great Recession and related Eurozone crisis. Due to the adoption of the euro, Greece could no longer devalue its currency to regain competitiveness. In the 2012 elections, there was major political change, with new parties emerging from the collapse of the two main parties, PASOK and New Democracy. In 2015, Alexis Tsipras was elected as prime minister, the first outside the two main parties. The Greek government-debt crisis, and subsequent austerity policies, resulted in social strife. The crisis ended around 2018, with the end of the bailout mechanisms and return of growth. Simultaneously, Tsipras, and the leader of North Macedonia, Zoran Zaev, signed the Prespa Agreement, solving the naming dispute that had strained relations and eased the latter's path to EU and NATO membership.

In 2019, Kyriakos Mitsotakis became Greece's new prime minister, after his centre-right New Democracy won the election. In 2020, Greece's parliament elected a non-partisan candidate, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, as the first female President of Greece. In February 2024, Greece became the first Orthodox Christian country to recognise same-sex marriage and adoption by same-sex couples.

In 2023, Greece became a member of the Three Seas Initiative.

Located in Southern and Southeast Europe, Greece has the longest coastline on the Mediterranean basin, spanning thousands of islands and nine traditional geographic regions: Macedonia, Central Greece, Peloponnese, Thessaly, Epirus, Aegean Islands, Thrace, Crete and Ionian Islands. Greece 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. Its highly indented coastline and numerous islands give Greece the 11th longest national coastline in the world, with 13,676 km (8,498 mi); its land boundary is 1,160 km (721 mi). The country lies approximately between latitudes 34° and 42° N, and longitudes 19° and 30° E, with the extreme points being: the village Ormenio in the North and the islands Gavdos (South), Strongyli near Kastellorizo (East), and Othonoi (West). Gavdos is considered the southernmost point of Europe.

Approximately 80% 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 2,918 metres (9,573 ft), the highest in the country. Western Greece contains a number of lakes and wetlands and is dominated by the Pindus mountain range. The Pindus, a continuation of the Dinaric Alps, reaches a maximum elevation of 2,637 m (8,652 ft) at Mt. Smolikas (the second-highest in Greece) and historically has been a significant barrier to east–west travel. Its extensions cross through the Peloponnese, ending in the island of Crete. The Vikos Gorge, part of the Vikos-Aoos National Park in the Pindus range, is listed by the Guinness book of World Records as the deepest gorge in the world relative to its width. Another notable formation are the Meteora rock pillars, atop which have been built medieval Greek Orthodox monasteries.

Northeastern Greece features another high-altitude mountain range, the Rhodope range, spreading across the region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace; this area is covered with vast, thick, ancient forests, including the famous Dadia Forest in the Evros regional unit, in the far northeast of the country.

Extensive plains are primarily located in the regions of Thessaly, Central Macedonia, and Thrace. They constitute key economic regions as they are among the few arable places in the country.

Greece features a vast number of islands—between 1,200 and 6,000, depending on the definition, 227 of which are inhabited. Crete is the largest and most populous island; Euboea, separated from the mainland by the 60 m-wide Euripus Strait, is the second largest, followed by Lesbos and Rhodes.

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 northeast Euboea; and the Ionian Islands, located to the west of the mainland in the Ionian Sea.

The climate of Greece is primarily Mediterranean (Köppen: Csa), featuring mild to cool, wet winters and hot, dry summers. This climate occurs at most of the coastal locations, including Athens, the Cyclades, the Dodecanese, Crete, the Peloponnese, the Ionian Islands, and parts of mainland Greece. 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), resulting to some coastal areas in the south falling to the hot semi-arid climate (Köppen: BSh) category, such as parts of the Athens Riviera and some of the Cyclades, as well as some areas in the north featuring a cold equivalent climate (Köppen: BSk), such as the cities of Thessaloniki and Larissa.

The mountainous areas and the higher elevations 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 (Köppen: D, E) with heavy snowfalls during the winter. Most of the inland parts of northern Greece, in Central Macedonia, the lower elevations of Western Macedonia and Eastern Macedonia and Thrace feature a humid subtropical climate (Köppen: Cfa) with cold, damp winters and hot, moderately dry summers with occasional thunderstorms. Snowfalls occur every year in the mountains and northern areas, and brief periods of snowy weather are possible even in low-lying southern areas, such as Athens.

Phytogeographically, Greece belongs to the Boreal Kingdom and is shared between the East Mediterranean province of the Mediterranean Region and the Illyrian province of the Circumboreal Region. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature and the European Environment Agency, the territory of Greece can be subdivided into six ecoregions: the Illyrian deciduous forests, Pindus Mountains mixed forests, Balkan mixed forests, Rhodope montane mixed forests, Aegean and Western Turkey sclerophyllous and mixed forests, and Crete Mediterranean forests. It had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 6.6/10, ranking it 70th globally out of 172 countries. In 2024, Greece became the first country in the European Union to ban bottom trawling in marine protected areas to protect its marine biodiversity.

Rare marine species such as the Mediterranean monk seal and the loggerhead sea turtle live in the seas surrounding mainland Greece, while its dense forests are home to the endangered brown bear, the Eurasian lynx, the roe deer, and more. Numerous species have been extirpated from the nation due to human activities such as lions, alpine ibex and European bison.

The current Constitution, establishing Greece as a parliamentary republic, was enacted in 1975, after the fall of the military dictatorship of 1967–1974, and has been amended four times since. It consists of 120 articles, provides for a separation of powers into executive, legislative, and judicial branches, and grants extensive specific guarantees (further reinforced in 2001) of civil liberties and social rights.

Legislative powers are exercised by a 300-member unicameral Parliament. According to the Constitution, executive power is exercised by the Government and the President of the Republic, who is the nominal head of state, is elected by the Parliament for a five-year term and promulgates statutes passed by Parliament. However, the Constitutional amendment of 1986 rendered the President's office largely ceremonial; the most powerful officeholder is thus the prime minister, Greece's head of government. The position is filled by 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 their recommendation, appoints and dismisses the other members of the Cabinet.

Members of Parliament are elected in direct elections, which are conducted with a system of semi-proportional representation with a majority bonus system, usually leading to the formation of single-party governments. Parliamentary elections are held every four years, but early elections are proclaimed by the President on the cabinet's proposal or if a motion of no confidence passes in Parliament. The voting age is 17. Women's suffrage was legislated in 1952.

According to International IDEA's Global State of Democracy (GSoD) Indices and Democracy Tracker, Greece performs in the mid-range on overall democratic measures, with particular strengths in elected government and freedom of movement. Moreover, according to an OECD report, Greeks display a moderate level of civic participation compared to most other developed countries; voter turnout was 58% during recent elections, lower than the OECD average of 69%.