Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, occupies the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula and thousands of islands in the Aegean and Ionian Seas. It borders Albania, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north and Turkey to the north-east. A member of the European Union since 1981 and of the euro since 2001 (coins and notes since 2002), it is a parliamentary republic with Athens as its capital.
The land
Almost 80% of the country is mountainous: the Pindus range runs from north to south, and no point is more than about a hundred kilometres from the sea. The mainland is divided into historic regions, from Macedonia and Epirus to Thessaly and the Peloponnese, while the islands form archipelagos: the Cyclades, Dodecanese, Ionian Islands, Sporades, Saronic islands and North Aegean islands. See Greek geography and the climate.
The people
After a long period of growth in the 20th century, the population has been falling since 2011, because of a low birth rate and young people emigrating during the economic crisis.
More than a third of Greeks live in the Athens area, and the second city, Thessaloniki, has about a million people in its urban area. See the Greek population.
The state
Greece is a parliamentary republic. Parliament, the Vouli, has 300 members elected every four years; the President of the Republic, elected by Parliament for five years, is mainly a guarantor, while the government is led by the Prime Minister. The country is divided into 13 regions and 332 municipalities, plus the self-governing monastic community of Mount Athos. See politics and administrative divisions.
Language, religion, symbols
People speak Modern Greek, a direct descendant of Homer's language, written in its own alphabet. The great majority belong to the Orthodox Church. The blue and white flag has nine stripes, said to stand for the syllables of the motto Eleftheria i thanatos, "Freedom or death".
Practical information
- Time zone: one hour ahead of Italy, all year round.
- Electricity: 230 V, European sockets.
- Documents: EU citizens need only a valid ID card.
- Emergency number: 112.
- Phones: no roaming charges for EU SIM cards.
See also Greece in numbers, history and travelling to Greece.