Greece

Greece's history reaches back to the Bronze Age civilisations of the Minoans and Mycenaeans. From around the eighth century BC rose the classical Greek world of independent city-states, above all Athens, birthplace of democracy, and Sparta. This era produced the philosophy, art, and science that underpin Western thought. Greek culture then spread across the known world through the conquests of Alexander the Great, before the land passed to Rome, the Byzantine Empire, and centuries of Ottoman rule.

The Greeks remembered an age of heroes, of gods on Mount Olympus and of legendary deeds such as the Trojan War recounted in Homer's epics. These myths were foundational to Greek identity and to Western literature. Whether the Trojan War reflects a real conflict, and how much of the heroic age is history rather than legend, remains genuinely debated, with archaeology offering tantalising but inconclusive clues.

Greece is overwhelmingly mountainous, with ranges covering much of the mainland and ridges continuing out to sea as countless rugged islands. No part of the country lies far from the water, and its deeply indented coastline is among the longest in the world. The land is rocky and the climate Mediterranean, with hot, dry summers and mild winters, conditions that have long shaped a life built around the sea, the olive, and the vine.

The Greek flag has nine horizontal stripes of blue and white, with a white cross on a blue field in the upper corner. The cross reflects the central place of Greek Orthodox Christianity in the nation's identity. The blue and white are commonly linked to the sky and the sea that surround the country, and the nine stripes are often said to stand for the syllables of the Greek motto meaning Freedom or Death, the cry of the war of independence.

Greece is one of the most religiously uniform countries in Europe, with the overwhelming majority belonging to the Greek Orthodox Church. Orthodoxy is bound tightly to Greek identity and history, having preserved the language and culture through centuries of foreign rule, and it remains influential in national life, its feast days and rituals woven into the calendar. Monasteries such as those of Mount Athos and Meteora are revered centres of the faith.

Greek cuisine is a celebrated expression of the Mediterranean diet, built on olive oil, fresh vegetables, grains, fish, and herbs. The Greek salad of tomatoes, cucumber, olives, and feta cheese is known everywhere, as are dishes like moussaka, a baked layering of aubergine and minced meat, souvlaki and gyros of grilled meat, and creamy yogurt drizzled with honey. Olives, bread, and wine have anchored the Greek table since antiquity.

Despite its rocky, mountainous terrain, Greece has a strong agricultural tradition suited to its Mediterranean climate. It is one of the world's leading producers of olives and olive oil, the heart of its cooking, and grows grapes for a long winemaking tradition, along with citrus, tomatoes, cotton, and tobacco. Feta cheese, made from sheep and goat milk, is a protected national product. Farming remains important to rural life and to exports.

Classical Greece gave humanity foundational ideas: democracy in Athens, the philosophy of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, the first Olympic Games, and the birth of theatre and history as we know them. After almost four centuries under Ottoman rule, Greeks won a hard-fought war of independence beginning in 1821 to refound their nation. In recent times the country endured a severe debt crisis that tested both Greece and the wider European Union.

Greece has a population of around 10 million people, the great majority ethnic Greeks united by language and the Orthodox faith. Like much of southern Europe, it has an ageing population and low birth rate. Roughly a third of all Greeks live in the Athens metropolitan area, the historic and modern centre of the country, while a large Greek diaspora, scattered by waves of emigration, maintains strong ties to the homeland from around the world.