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Greece

Greece, formally called the Hellenic Republic (in Greek: Ελληνική Δημοκρατία) (Helleniké Demokratía), is a country in the southeast of Europe on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula. It is bounded on land by Bulgaria, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Albania to the north, to the east by Turkey and the waters of the Aegean Sea and to the west and south by the Ionian and Mediterranean Seas. Regarded by many as the cradle of Western civilization, Greece has a long and rich history during which it spread its influence over three continents.

Greece geography

The country consists of a large mainland at the southern end of the Balkans; the Peloponnesus peninsula, which is separated from the mainland by the canal of the Isthmus of Corinth; and numerous islands, including Crete, Rhodes, Euboea and the Dodecanese and Cycladic groups of the Aegean Sea. Greece has more than 14,880 kilometres of coastline and a land boundary of 1,160 kilometres.

About 80% of Greece is mountainous or hilly. Much of the country is dry and rocky; only 28% of the land is arable. Western Greece contains lakes and wetlands. Pindus, the central mountain range, has an average elevation of 2,650 m. The Mount Olympus is the highest point in Greece at 2,911 m above sea level.

Greece's climate features mild, wet winters and hot, dry summers. Temperatures are rarely extreme, although snowfalls do occur in the mountains and occasionally even in Athens in the winter.

Seals, sea turtles and other rare marine life can be

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Greece".