Location

Geographically, Greece forms the southernmost extension of the Balkan Peninsula. Along its northern border, from west to east, lie Albania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Bulgaria; to the east is Turkey. The Greek mainland is a peninsula bounded by the Ionian Sea to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and the Aegean Sea to the east. Crete, the country's largest island, stretching about 165 miles (266 km) from east to west, lies in the Mediterranean Sea and is separated from the peninsula by the Sea of Crete. Athens is the capital of Greece.

Land and Climate

The Greek landscape, with its 2,000-odd islands and its rugged mainland coastline exceeding 4,000 km in length, is intimately linked with the sea. Only a small wedge of the Greek peninsula's interior is more than 80 km from the sea. Less than a fourth of it is lowland, much of this being coastal plains along the Aegean Sea. The only other lowlands are in the many narrow, mostly fertile mountain basins and valleys and the small plains that often lie near river mouths. The country's interior is dominated by the Pindus Mountains, which extend from Albania on Greece's northwestern border down through central Greece into the Peloponnese (the large peninsula, technically now an island, lying south of the Gulf of Corinth). Mount Olympus, the country's highest peak, reaches 2,917 m.

The Greek Islands are generally subdivided into two groups, according to location. The Ionian Islands, located to the west of the mainland, include Corfu (Kérkira), Leucas, Cephalonia, and Zacynthus and many smaller ones. The Aegean Islands are much more numerous, including Euboea and the Northern Sporades group in the west; Samothrace, Lemnos, and Lesbos in the north; Chios and the Dodecanese group in the southeast; and the Cyclades group and Crete in the south.

Greece has a Mediterranean climate with extremely dry summers. Average annual rainfall decreases generally eastward and southward of the western coastal areas, from 1,320 mm on the northwestern island of Corfu to less than 406 mm in Athens. Winters are mild throughout the country, with temperatures averaging between 6 to 12 ^oC (43 and 54 ^oF), and summer temperatures average from 26 to 28 ^oC (79 to 82 ^oF).