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104-412: Korniaktos, a Greek , was born in the city of Candia (today Heraklion ) on Crete in 1517. He moved to Constantinople at a young age where already in 1540 he became a wealthy merchant. Later he moved to Moldavia where he lived for the rest of his life. Some time in the 1560s Korniakt settled in the city of Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine) where he took over a business of his older brother Michael. Already at

208-471: A Greek state. Herodotus gave a famous account of what defined Greek (Hellenic) ethnic identity in his day, enumerating By Western standards, the term Greeks has traditionally referred to any native speakers of the Greek language , whether Mycenaean , Byzantine or modern Greek . Byzantine Greeks self-identified as Romaioi ("Romans"), Graikoi ("Greeks") and Christianoi ("Christians") since they were

312-518: A bio-genetic affinity and continuity shared between both groups. There is also a direct genetic link between ancient Greeks and modern Greeks. Today, Greeks are the majority ethnic group in the Hellenic Republic , where they constitute 93% of the country's population, and the Republic of Cyprus where they make up 78% of the island's population (excluding Turkish settlers in the occupied part of

416-713: A break during the Greek Dark Ages from which written records are absent (11th- 8th cent. BC, though the Cypriot syllabary was in use during this period). Scholars compare its continuity of tradition to Chinese alone. Since its inception, Hellenism was primarily a matter of common culture and the national continuity of the Greek world is a lot more certain than its demographic. Yet, Hellenism also embodied an ancestral dimension through aspects of Athenian literature that developed and influenced ideas of descent based on autochthony. During

520-517: A common Greek identity. In the historical period, Herodotus identified the Achaeans of the northern Peloponnese as descendants of the earlier, Homeric Achaeans. Homer refers to the "Hellenes" ( / ˈ h ɛ l iː n z / ) as a relatively small tribe settled in Thessalic Phthia , with its warriors under the command of Achilleus . The Parian Chronicle says that Phthia was the homeland of

624-787: A derogatory exonym for the Byzantines who barely used it, mostly in contexts relating to the West, such as texts relating to the Council of Florence , to present the Western viewpoint. Additionally, among the Germanic and the Slavic peoples, the Rhōmaîoi were just called Greeks. There are three schools of thought regarding this Byzantine Roman identity in contemporary Byzantine scholarship : The first considers "Romanity"

728-489: A direct consequence of this situation, Greek-speakers came to play a hugely important role in the Ottoman trading and diplomatic establishment, as well as in the church. Added to this, in the first half of the Ottoman period men of Greek origin made up a significant proportion of the Ottoman army, navy, and state bureaucracy, having been levied as adolescents (along with especially Albanians and Serbs ) into Ottoman service through

832-615: A durable building material in many buildings such as the Parthenon . Greece has substantial marine life with plentiful fish in its EEZ. Irrigated land: 15,550 km (2007) [REDACTED] Mainland Greece forms the southernmost part of the Balkan peninsula with two additional smaller peninsulas projecting from it: the Chalkidiki and the Peloponnese . The north of the country includes

936-597: A law that allowed members of the diaspora to vote in Greek elections; this law was repealed in early 2014. In ancient times, the trading and colonizing activities of the Greek tribes and city states spread the Greek culture, religion and language around the Mediterranean and Black Sea basins, especially in Southern Italy (the so-called " Magna Graecia "), Spain, the south of France and the Black sea coasts . Under Alexander

1040-609: A matter of course on being recruited through the devshirme —were to be found in Crete ( Cretan Turks ), Greek Macedonia (for example among the Vallahades of western Macedonia ), and among Pontic Greeks in the Pontic Alps and Armenian Highlands . Several Ottoman sultans and princes were also of part Greek origin, with mothers who were either Greek concubines or princesses from Byzantine noble families, one famous example being sultan Selim

1144-450: A nation in the meaning of an ethnos , defined by possessing Greek culture and having a Greek mother tongue , not by citizenship, race, and religion or by being subjects of any particular state. In ancient and medieval times and to some extent today the Greek term was genos , which also indicates a common ancestry. Greeks and Greek-speakers have used different names to refer to themselves collectively. The term Achaeans (Ἀχαιοί)

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1248-609: A part of their historic homelands, Peloponnese , from the Ottoman Empire . The large Greek diaspora and merchant class were instrumental in transmitting the ideas of western romantic nationalism and philhellenism , which together with the conception of Hellenism, formulated during the last centuries of the Byzantine Empire , formed the basis of the Diafotismos and the current conception of Hellenism. The Greeks today are

1352-582: A recorded continuous human presence. The Greek islands account for about 20% of the country's total territory, and vary greatly in size as well as in climate. The country's largest island is Crete , with Euboea being second largest. Other large Greek islands include Rhodes and Lesbos in the Aegean Sea, and Corfu and Cephalonia in the Ionian Sea. Many of the smaller Greek islands form groups or chains, often called archipelagos , with notable examples being

1456-411: A sense of religious and cultural difference and exclusion (the word barbarian was used by 12th-century historian Anna Komnene to describe non-Greek speakers), a sense of Greek identity and common sense of ethnicity despite the undeniable socio-political changes of the past two millennia. In recent anthropological studies, both ancient and modern Greek osteological samples were analyzed demonstrating

1560-496: A separate mountain), rising to 2,917 m above sea level . The Rhodope Mountains form the border between Greece and Bulgaria; that area is covered with vast and thick forests. Plains are found in eastern Thessaly , in central Macedonia and in Thrace . The extreme points of Greece are Greece has notable deposits of petroleum , magnetite , lignite , bauxite , hydropower , marble , limestone Ancient Greeks used limestone as

1664-566: A third of the Greek population of the island in 1974, there was also an increase in the number of Greek Cypriots leaving, especially for the Middle East, which contributed to a decrease in population that tapered off in the 1990s. Today more than two-thirds of the Greek population in Cyprus is urban. Around 1990, most Western estimates of the number of ethnic Greeks in Albania were around 200,000 but in

1768-578: A time spanning from the early 5th century BC to the death of Alexander the Great , in 323 BC (some authors prefer to split this period into "Classical", from the end of the Greco-Persian Wars to the end of the Peloponnesian War, and "Fourth Century", up to the death of Alexander). It is so named because it set the standards by which Greek civilization would be judged in later eras. The Classical period

1872-500: Is also described as the "Golden Age" of Greek civilization, and its art, philosophy, architecture and literature would be instrumental in the formation and development of Western culture. While the Greeks of the classical era understood themselves to belong to a common Hellenic genos , their first loyalty was to their city and they saw nothing incongruous about warring, often brutally, with other Greek city-states . The Peloponnesian War ,

1976-459: Is likely that one of the factors which contributed to the Mycenaean palatial collapse was linked to raids by groups known in historiography as the " Sea Peoples " who sailed into the eastern Mediterranean around 1180 BC. The Dorian invasion was followed by a poorly attested period of migrations, appropriately called the Greek Dark Ages , but by 800 BC the landscape of Archaic and Classical Greece

2080-428: Is mild. A Mediterranean climate prevails on the coast and islands, and a Continental climate prevails in the mountainous regions of the interior. Summers are hot and dry and winters are cool and humid. Summer is rainless and the almost cloudless season lasts about three months. In July and August, the temperature usually rises to around 30–35 °C and even above 40 °C. In the eastern part of the country and especially in

2184-661: Is one of the collective names for the Greeks in Homer 's Iliad and Odyssey (the Homeric "long-haired Achaeans" would have been a part of the Mycenaean civilization that dominated Greece from c. 1600 BC until 1100 BC). The other common names are Danaans (Δαναοί) and Argives (Ἀργεῖοι) while Panhellenes (Πανέλληνες) and Hellenes (Ἕλληνες) both appear only once in the Iliad ; all of these terms were used, synonymously, to denote

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2288-569: Is possibly derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *ǵerh₂- , "to grow old", more specifically from Graea (ancient city), said by Aristotle to be the oldest in Greece, and the source of colonists for the Naples area. The most obvious link between modern and ancient Greeks is their language, which has a documented tradition from at least the 14th century BC to the present day, albeit with

2392-565: Is the oldest recorded living language and its vocabulary has been the basis of many languages, including English as well as international scientific nomenclature . Greek was by far the most widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world since the fourth century BC and the New Testament of the Christian Bible was also originally written in Greek. The Greeks speak the Greek language , which forms its own unique branch within

2496-707: The Graikoi (Γραικοί) were named Hellenes. Aristotle notes in his Meteorologica that the Hellenes were related to the Graikoi. The English names Greece and Greek are derived, via the Latin Graecia and Graecus , from the name of the Graeci ( Γραικοί , Graikoí ; singular Γραικός , Graikós ), who were among the first ancient Greek tribes to settle southern Italy (the so-called " Magna Graecia "). The term

2600-565: The 2nd millennium BC has to be reconstructed on the basis of the ancient Greek dialects , as they presented themselves centuries later and are therefore subject to some uncertainties. There were at least two migrations, the first being the Ionians and Achaeans , which resulted in Mycenaean Greece by the 16th century BC, and the second, the Dorian invasion , around the 11th century BC, displacing

2704-732: The Arcadocypriot dialects , which descended from the Mycenaean period. Both migrations occur at incisive periods, the Mycenaean at the transition to the Late Bronze Age and the Doric at the Bronze Age collapse . In c. 1600 BC, the Mycenaean Greeks borrowed from the Minoan civilization its syllabic writing system ( Linear A ) and developed their own syllabic script known as Linear B , providing

2808-626: The Bronze Age . Until the early 20th century, Greeks were distributed between the Greek peninsula , the western coast of Asia Minor , the Black Sea coast, Cappadocia in central Anatolia, Egypt , the Balkans , Cyprus, and Constantinople . Many of these regions coincided to a large extent with the borders of the Byzantine Empire of the late 11th century and the Eastern Mediterranean areas of ancient Greek colonization . The cultural centers of

2912-566: The Byzantine Empire , a name not used during its own time ) became increasingly influenced by Greek culture after the 7th century when Emperor Heraclius ( r.   610–641 AD) decided to make Greek the empire's official language. Although the Catholic Church recognized the Eastern Empire's claim to the Roman legacy for several centuries, after Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne , king of

3016-502: The Cyclades and the Sporades in the south and central Aegean Sea respectively. The islands of the Aegean Sea are situated between mainland Greece to the west and north, Anatolia to the east and the island of Crete to the south. Traditionally, the islands are classified into seven groups, from north to south: The Ionian Islands are a group of seven islands. The six northern islands lie off

3120-598: The Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea . They also form a significant diaspora ( omogenia ), with many Greek communities established around the world. Greek colonies and communities have been historically established on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea , but the Greek people themselves have always been centered on the Aegean and Ionian seas, where the Greek language has been spoken since

3224-513: The Eastern Mediterranean , after Cyprus . The island spans 260 km from east to west and 60 km from north to south at its widest. The island narrows in the region close to Ierapetra, where it is only 12 km wide. Crete covers an area of 8,336 km (3,219 sq mi), with a coastline of 1046 km. It is surrounded to the north by the Sea of Crete ; to the south by the Libyan Sea ; to

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3328-812: The Franks , as the " Roman Emperor " on 25 December 800, an act which eventually led to the formation of the Holy Roman Empire , the Latin West started to favour the Franks and began to refer to the Eastern Roman Empire largely as the Empire of the Greeks ( Imperium Graecorum ). While this Latin term for the ancient Hellenes could be used neutrally, its use by Westerners from the 9th century onwards in order to challenge Byzantine claims to ancient Roman heritage rendered it

3432-490: The Holy Roman Empire . He became a merchant and traded in wine , cloth , cotton, honey, hides and furs and soon became very wealthy, even lending money to the kings of Poland including Sigismund II Augustus , and other noble families. Korniakt was a patron of architecture and built a magnificent house near the market, which later was rebuilt by John III Sobieski and is now known as the Korniakt Palace . He also expanded

3536-520: The Indo-European family of languages, the Hellenic . They are part of a group of classical ethnicities, described by Anthony D. Smith as an "archetypal diaspora people". The Proto-Greeks probably arrived at the area now called Greece, in the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula , at the end of the 3rd millennium BC between 2200 and 1900 BC. The sequence of migrations into the Greek mainland during

3640-566: The Indo-Greek and Greco-Bactrian kingdoms, Greco-Buddhism was spreading and Greek missionaries would play an important role in propagating it to China . Further east, the Greeks of Alexandria Eschate became known to the Chinese people as the Dayuan . Between 168 BC and 30 BC, the entire Greek world was conquered by Rome, and almost all of the world's Greek speakers lived as citizens or subjects of

3744-665: The Italian Renaissance . The interest in the Classical Greek heritage was complemented by a renewed emphasis on Greek Orthodox identity, which was reinforced in the late Medieval and Ottoman Greeks' links with their fellow Orthodox Christians in the Russian Empire . These were further strengthened following the fall of the Empire of Trebizond in 1461, after which and until the second Russo-Turkish War of 1828–29 hundreds of thousands of Pontic Greeks fled or migrated from

3848-777: The Meteora and the Vikos Gorges – the latter being the world's deepest canyon in proportion to its width, and the third deepest after the Copper Canyon in Mexico and the Grand Canyon in the United States , plunging vertically for more than 1,100 metres. Mount Olympus is the highest point in Greece, the 7th highest and the 9th most prominent mountain in mainland Europe (together with Gerlachovský štít and including Großglockner as

3952-671: The Pontic Alps and Armenian Highlands to southern Russia and the Russian South Caucasus (see also Greeks in Russia , Greeks in Armenia , Greeks in Georgia , and Caucasian Greeks ). These Byzantine Greeks were largely responsible for the preservation of the literature of the classical era. Byzantine grammarians were those principally responsible for carrying, in person and in writing, ancient Greek grammatical and literary studies to

4056-429: The Roman Empire , they became secondary to religious considerations, and the renewed empire used Christianity as a tool to support its cohesion and promote a robust Roman national identity. From the early centuries of the Common Era , the Greeks self-identified as Romans ( Greek : Ῥωμαῖοι Rhōmaîoi ). By that time, the name Hellenes denoted pagans but was revived as an ethnonym in the 11th century. During most of

4160-414: The Second World War (1939–1945), the Greek Civil War (1946–1949), and the Turkish Invasion of Cyprus in 1974. While official figures remain scarce, polls and anecdotal evidence point to renewed Greek emigration as a result of the Greek financial crisis . According to data published by the Federal Statistical Office of Germany in 2011, 23,800 Greeks emigrated to Germany, a significant increase over

4264-416: The Treaty of Lausanne was signed between Greece and Turkey in 1923, the two countries agreed to use religion as the determinant for ethnic identity for the purposes of population exchange, although most of the Greeks displaced (over a million of the total 1.5 million) had already been driven out by the time the agreement was signed. The Greek genocide , in particular the harsh removal of Pontian Greeks from

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4368-401: The devshirme . Many Ottomans of Greek (or Albanian or Serb) origin were therefore to be found within the Ottoman forces which governed the provinces, from Ottoman Egypt, to Ottomans occupied Yemen and Algeria , frequently as provincial governors. For those that remained under the Ottoman Empire 's millet system , religion was the defining characteristic of national groups ( milletler ), so

4472-429: The exonym "Greeks" ( Rumlar from the name Rhomaioi) was applied by the Ottomans to all members of the Orthodox Church , regardless of their language or ethnic origin. The Greek speakers were the only ethnic group to actually call themselves Romioi , (as opposed to being so named by others) and, at least those educated, considered their ethnicity ( genos ) to be Hellenic. There were, however, many Greeks who escaped

4576-432: The lingua franca rather than Latin . The modern-day Griko community of southern Italy, numbering about 60,000, may represent a living remnant of the ancient Greek populations of Italy. During and after the Greek War of Independence , Greeks of the diaspora were important in establishing the fledgling state, raising funds and awareness abroad. Greek merchant families already had contacts in other countries and during

4680-430: The 1990s, a majority of them migrated to Greece. The Greek minority of Turkey , which numbered upwards of 200,000 people after the 1923 exchange, has now dwindled to a few thousand, after the 1955 Constantinople Pogrom and other state sponsored violence and discrimination. This effectively ended, though not entirely, the three-thousand-year-old presence of Hellenism in Asia Minor. There are smaller Greek minorities in

4784-408: The 4th century, with some areas such as the southeastern Peloponnese remaining pagan until well into the mid-Byzantine 10th century AD. The region of Tsakonia remained pagan until the ninth century and as such its inhabitants were referred to as Hellenes , in the sense of being pagan, by their Christianized Greek brethren in mainstream Byzantine society. While ethnic distinctions still existed in

4888-463: The Caucasus and southern Russia and Ukraine and in the Greek diaspora communities in a number of other countries. Today, most Greeks are officially registered as members of the Greek Orthodox Church . Greeks have greatly influenced and contributed to culture, visual arts, exploration, theatre, literature, philosophy, ethics, politics, architecture, music, mathematics, medicine, science, technology, commerce, cuisine and sports. The Greek language

4992-437: The European cultural revolution, later called the Renaissance. In Greek-inhabited territory itself, Greeks came to play a leading role in the Ottoman Empire , due in part to the fact that the central hub of the empire, politically, culturally, and socially, was based on Western Thrace and Macedonia , both in Northern Greece , and of course was centred on the mainly Greek-populated, former Byzantine capital, Constantinople . As

5096-429: The Great Deluge of Deucalion , a land occupied by the Selloi and the "Greeks" who later came to be known as "Hellenes". In the Homeric tradition, the Selloi were the priests of Dodonian Zeus. In the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women , Graecus is presented as the son of Zeus and Pandora II , sister of Hellen the patriarch of the Hellenes. According to the Parian Chronicle , when Deucalion became king of Phthia,

5200-414: The Great's empire and successor states, Greek and Hellenizing ruling classes were established in the Middle East , India and in Egypt . The Hellenistic period is characterized by a new wave of Greek colonization that established Greek cities and kingdoms in Asia and Africa . Under the Roman Empire, easier movement of people spread Greeks across the Empire and in the eastern territories, Greek became

5304-423: The Greek enlightenment, the Greek expression of the Age of Enlightenment , contributed not only in the promotion of education, culture and printing among the Greeks, but also in the case of independence from the Ottomans , and the restoration of the term "Hellene". Adamantios Korais , probably the most important intellectual of the movement, advocated the use of the term "Hellene" (Έλληνας) or "Graikos" (Γραικός) in

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5408-430: The Greeks have included Athens , Thessalonica , Alexandria , Smyrna , and Constantinople at various periods. In recent times, most ethnic Greeks live within the borders of the modern Greek state or in Cyprus. The Greek genocide and population exchange between Greece and Turkey nearly ended the three millennia-old Greek presence in Asia Minor. Other longstanding Greek populations can be found from southern Italy to

5512-400: The Grim ( r.   1517–1520), whose mother Gülbahar Hatun was a Pontic Greek . The roots of Greek success in the Ottoman Empire can be traced to the Greek tradition of education and commerce exemplified in the Phanariotes . It was the wealth of the extensive merchant class that provided the material basis for the intellectual revival that was the prominent feature of Greek life in

5616-403: The Hellenes and that this name was given to those previously called Greeks ( Γραικοί ). In Greek mythology , Hellen , the patriarch of the Hellenes who ruled around Phthia, was the son of Pyrrha and Deucalion , the only survivors after the Great Deluge . The Greek philosopher Aristotle names ancient Hellas as an area in Epirus between Dodona and the Achelous river, the location of

5720-478: The Homeric tradition of ancient Greece. A distinct Greek identity re-emerged in the 11th century in educated circles and became more forceful after the fall of Constantinople to the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade in 1204. In the Empire of Nicaea , a small circle of the elite used the term "Hellene" as a term of self-identification. For example, in a letter to Pope Gregory IX , the Nicaean emperor John III Doukas Vatatzes (r. 1221–1254) claimed to have received

5824-414: The Indo-Greek kingdoms lasted for a few more decades. This age saw the Greeks move towards larger cities and a reduction in the importance of the city-state. These larger cities were parts of the still larger Kingdoms of the Diadochi . Greeks, however, remained aware of their past, chiefly through the study of the works of Homer and the classical authors. An important factor in maintaining Greek identity

5928-472: The Middle Ages, the Byzantine Greeks self-identified as Rhōmaîoi ( Ῥωμαῖοι , "Romans", meaning citizens of the Roman Empire ), a term which in the Greek language had become synonymous with Christian Greeks. The Latinizing term Graikoí (Γραικοί, "Greeks") was also used, though its use was less common, and nonexistent in official Byzantine political correspondence, prior to the Fourth Crusade of 1204. The Eastern Roman Empire (today conventionally named

6032-402: The Mycenaean heritage that survived, the names of the gods and goddesses of Mycenaean Greece (e.g. Zeus , Poseidon and Hades ) became major figures of the Olympian Pantheon of later antiquity. The ethnogenesis of the Greek nation is linked to the development of Pan-Hellenism in the 8th century BC. According to some scholars, the foundational event was the Olympic Games in 776 BC, when

6136-423: The Roman Empire. Despite their military superiority, the Romans admired and became heavily influenced by the achievements of Greek culture, hence Horace 's famous statement: Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit ("Greece, although captured, took its wild conqueror captive"). In the centuries following the Roman conquest of the Greek world, the Greek and Roman cultures merged into a single Greco-Roman culture. In

6240-619: The Samariá Gorge is the home of the Cretan goat, or kri-kri , while the endangered Bearded vulture or lammergeyer lives in the Cretan mountains and gorges. Crete's rivers include the Ieropotamos River in the southern part of the island. Greece is a mostly mountainous country with a very long coastline, filled with peninsulas and islands. The climate can range from semi-desert to cold climate mountain forests. Greece's natural hazards include severe earthquakes, floods, droughts and wildfires. Current environmental issues in Greece include air pollution and water pollution. The climate of Greece

6344-568: The Wallachian church and funded its famous tower. He was an ardent follower of the Eastern Orthodox Church and defended its interests maintaining friendly relations with other Christian denominations. Around 1575 he married Ruthenian noblewoman Anna Dzieduszycka h. Sas , and soon had children. His sons were Alexander, Constantine (father of Captain Charles Francis) and Michael Korniakt, his daughters were Katarzyna, Anna (married Jan "Gratus" Tarnowski ), Sophia (married Abraham Hubert) and Catherine (married Aleksander Chodkiewicz and after his death

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6448-404: The West during the 15th century, giving the Italian Renaissance a major boost. The Aristotelian philosophical tradition was nearly unbroken in the Greek world for almost two thousand years, until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. To the Slavic world, the Byzantine Greeks contributed by the dissemination of literacy and Christianity. The most notable example of the later was the work of

6552-424: The archipelago, a cooling Etesian wind blows in the summer, but in big cities like Athens it can get sweltering hot. The wind can be very strong at times, which makes sailing difficult. A special feature of Greek weather is the high amount of sunshine. It is available for five hours even in winter, and up to 12–14 hours a day in summer. The rains mostly occur in winter. Snow can be found everywhere in Greece, but it

6656-448: The center of the country in a northwest-to-southeast direction, with a maximum elevation of 2,637 m. Extensions of the same mountain range stretch across the Peloponnese and underwater across the Aegean, forming many of the Aegean Islands including Crete , and joining with the Taurus Mountains of southern Turkey. Central and western Greece contain high and steep peaks intersected by many canyons and other karstic landscapes , including

6760-419: The city of Athens. Greeks from Cyprus have a similar history of emigration, usually to the English-speaking world because of the island's colonization by the British Empire . Waves of emigration followed the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, while the population decreased between mid-1974 and 1977 as a result of emigration, war losses, and a temporary decline in fertility. After the ethnic cleansing of

6864-576: The country has considerable climatic variation. Greece is located in South Eastern Europe , bordering the Ionian Sea and the Mediterranean Sea . It is a peninsular country, with an archipelago of about 3,000 islands. It has a total area of 131,957 km (50,949 sq mi), of which land area is 130,647 km and internal waters (lakes and rivers) account for 1,310 km . Land boundaries with Albania (212 km), North Macedonia (234 km), Bulgaria (472 km) and Turkey (192 km) measure approximately 1,110 km in total. Of

6968-436: The country's total territory, 83.33% or 110,496 km (42,663 sq mi) is mainland territory and the rest 16.67% or 21,461 km (8,286 sq mi) is island territory. It has an exclusive economic zone of 505,572 km (195,202 sq mi) which is the 53rd largest. Greece's coastline measures 13,676 km (8,498 mi). 80% of Greece is mountainous . The Pindus mountain range lies across

7072-406: The country). Greek populations have not traditionally exhibited high rates of growth; a large percentage of Greek population growth since Greece's foundation in 1832 was attributed to annexation of new territories, as well as the influx of 1.5 million Greek refugees after the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey. About 80% of the population of Greece is urban, with 28% concentrated in

7176-460: The creation of colonies and trade routes along the way. While the Alexandrian empire did not survive its creator's death intact, the cultural implications of the spread of Hellenism across much of the Middle East and Asia were to prove long lived as Greek became the lingua franca , a position it retained even in Roman times . Many Greeks settled in Hellenistic cities like Alexandria , Antioch and Seleucia . The Hellenistic civilization

7280-400: The descendants of Greeks and Romans. Before the establishment of the modern Greek nation-state, the link between ancient and modern Greeks was emphasized by the scholars of Greek Enlightenment especially by Rigas Feraios. In his "Political Constitution", he addresses to the nation as "the people descendant of the Greeks". The modern Greek state was created in 1829, when the Greeks liberated

7384-540: The disturbances many set up home around the Mediterranean (notably Marseilles in France , Livorno in Italy , Alexandria in Egypt ), Russia ( Odesa and Saint Petersburg ), and Britain (London and Liverpool) from where they traded, typically in textiles and grain. Businesses frequently comprised the extended family, and with them they brought schools teaching Greek and the Greek Orthodox Church . As markets changed and they became more established, some families grew their operations to become shippers , financed through

7488-578: The first and oldest written evidence of Greek . The Mycenaeans quickly penetrated the Aegean Sea and, by the 15th century BC, had reached Rhodes , Crete , Cyprus and the shores of Asia Minor . Around 1200 BC, the Dorians , another Greek-speaking people, followed from Epirus . Older historical research often proposed Dorian invasion caused the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization , but this narrative has been abandoned in all contemporary research. It

7592-427: The gift of royalty from Constantine the Great, and put emphasis on his "Hellenic" descent, exalting the wisdom of the Greek people. After the Byzantines recaptured Constantinople, however, in 1261, Rhomaioi became again dominant as a term for self-description and there are few traces of Hellene (Έλληνας), such as in the writings of George Gemistos Plethon , who abandoned Christianity and in whose writings culminated

7696-518: The governor of Belz, Duke Konstanty Wiśniowiecki ). Soon after his death in 1603, all of his children converted to Catholicism and eventually were polonized. His son subsequently sold part of his estate and land in Lwów , and his brother Alexander Korniaktow left and moved to the property he inherited from his parents in Przemyśl . He was owner of three residences in the villages Sośnica, Złotowice and Białoboki,

7800-556: The half century and more leading to the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence in 1821. Not coincidentally, on the eve of 1821, the three most important centres of Greek learning were situated in Chios , Smyrna and Aivali , all three major centres of Greek commerce. Greek success was also favoured by Greek domination in the leadership of the Eastern Orthodox church. The movement of

7904-484: The idea of a common Hellenism among the Greek tribes was first translated into a shared cultural experience and Hellenism was primarily a matter of common culture. The works of Homer (i.e. Iliad and Odyssey ) and Hesiod (i.e. Theogony ) were written in the 8th century BC, becoming the basis of the national religion, ethos, history and mythology. The Oracle of Apollo at Delphi was established in this period. The classical period of Greek civilization covers

8008-408: The large scale civil war between the two most powerful Greek city-states Athens and Sparta and their allies , left both greatly weakened. Most of the feuding Greek city-states were, in some scholars' opinions, united by force under the banner of Philip 's and Alexander the Great 's Pan-Hellenic ideals, though others might generally opt, rather, for an explanation of " Macedonian conquest for

8112-612: The largest being Crete , Euboea , Lesvos , Rhodes , Chios , Kefalonia , and Corfu ; groups of smaller islands include the Dodecanese and the Cyclades . According to the CIA World Factbook , Greece has 13,676 kilometres (8,498 mi) of coastline , the largest in the Mediterranean Basin. Greece's latitude ranges from 35°N to 42°N and its longitude from 19°E to 28°E. As a result of this and its physical geography,

8216-466: The later years of the Eastern Roman Empire, areas such as Ionia and Constantinople experienced a Hellenic revival in language, philosophy, and literature and on classical models of thought and scholarship. This revival provided a powerful impetus to the sense of cultural affinity with ancient Greece and its classical heritage. Throughout their history, the Greeks have retained their language and alphabet , certain values and cultural traditions, customs,

8320-402: The latter being chosen for the family. In 1610 the construction of the castle began. Greeks The Greeks or Hellenes ( / ˈ h ɛ l iː n z / ; Greek : Έλληνες , Éllines [ˈelines] ) are an ethnic group and nation native to Greece , Cyprus , southern Albania , Anatolia , parts of Italy and Egypt , and to a lesser extent, other countries surrounding

8424-642: The local Greek community, notably with the aid of the Ralli or Vagliano Brothers . With economic success, the Diaspora expanded further across the Levant , North Africa, India and the USA. In the 20th century, many Greeks left their traditional homelands for economic reasons resulting in large migrations from Greece and Cyprus to the United States , Great Britain , Australia , Canada , Germany , and South Africa , especially after

8528-435: The mode of self-identification of the subjects of a multi-ethnic empire at least up to the 12th century, where the average subject identified as Roman; a perennialist approach, which views Romanity as the medieval expression of a continuously existing Greek nation; while a third view considers the eastern Roman identity as a pre-modern national identity. The Byzantine Greeks' essential values were drawn from both Christianity and

8632-462: The number is closer to just below five million. Integration, intermarriage, and loss of the Greek language influence the self-identification of the Greek diaspora ( omogenia ). Important centres include New York City , Chicago , Boston , Los Angeles , Sydney , Melbourne , London , Toronto , Montreal , Vancouver , Auckland , and Sao Paulo . In 2010, the Hellenic Parliament introduced

8736-459: The place of Romiós , that was seen negatively by him. The relationship between ethnic Greek identity and Greek Orthodox religion continued after the creation of the modern Greek nation-state in 1830. According to the second article of the first Greek constitution of 1822, a Greek was defined as any native Christian resident of the Kingdom of Greece , a clause removed by 1840. A century later, when

8840-589: The political heirs of imperial Rome , the descendants of their classical Greek forebears and followers of the Apostles ; during the mid-to-late Byzantine period (11th–13th century), a growing number of Byzantine Greek intellectuals deemed themselves Hellenes although for most Greek-speakers, "Hellene" still meant pagan. On the eve of the Fall of Constantinople the Last Emperor urged his soldiers to remember that they were

8944-639: The previous year. By comparison, about 9,000 Greeks emigrated to Germany in 2009 and 12,000 in 2010. Greek peninsula Greece is a country in Southeastern Europe , on the Balkan Peninsula . It is bordered to the north by Albania , North Macedonia and Bulgaria ; to the east by Turkey , and is surrounded to the east by the Aegean Sea , to the south by the Cretan and the Libyan seas, and to

9048-538: The regions of Macedonia and Thrace . To the south the mainland narrows and includes the regions of Epirus , Thessaly and Central Greece , where the region of Attica and the capital city Athens are located. Further south, the smaller peninsula of Peloponnese is separated from the rest of the Greek mainland by the Corinthian and Saronic Gulfs , but joined by the Isthmus of Corinth . Mainland Greece covers about 80% of

9152-524: The religious sphere, this was a period of profound change. The spiritual revolution that took place, saw a waning of the old Greek religion, whose decline beginning in the 3rd century BC continued with the introduction of new religious movements from the East. The cults of deities like Isis and Mithra were introduced into the Greek world. Greek-speaking communities of the Hellenized East were instrumental in

9256-706: The rest of the Balkan countries, the Levant and the Black Sea states, remnants of the Old Greek Diaspora (pre-19th century). The total number of Greeks living outside Greece and Cyprus today is a contentious issue. Where census figures are available, they show around three million Greeks outside Greece and Cyprus. Estimates provided by the SAE – World Council of Hellenes Abroad put the figure at around seven million worldwide. According to George Prevelakis of Sorbonne University ,

9360-530: The sake of conquest" or at least conquest for the sake of riches, glory and power and view the "ideal" as useful propaganda directed towards the city-states. In any case, Alexander's toppling of the Achaemenid Empire , after his victories at the battles of the Granicus , Issus and Gaugamela , and his advance as far as modern-day Pakistan and Tajikistan , provided an important outlet for Greek culture, via

9464-463: The second highest of the Balkan peninsula after Musala in the Rila Mountain . The number of islands vary between 1,200 and 6,000. A figure frequently cited in travel guides is 1,425 islands, of which 166 are said to be inhabited. The Greek Tourism Organization reports a figure of 6,000, with 227 of them inhabited. Paris Match , however, raises this number to 9,841 islands, of which only 169 have

9568-536: The second-class status of Christians inherent in the Ottoman millet system, according to which Muslims were explicitly awarded senior status and preferential treatment. These Greeks either emigrated, particularly to their fellow Orthodox Christian protector, the Russian Empire , or simply converted to Islam, often only very superficially and whilst remaining crypto-Christian . The most notable examples of large-scale conversion to Turkish Islam among those today defined as Greek Muslims —excluding those who had to convert as

9672-681: The secular tendency in the interest in the classical past. However, it was the combination of Orthodox Christianity with a specifically Greek identity that shaped the Greeks' notion of themselves in the empire's twilight years. In the twilight years of the Byzantine Empire, prominent Byzantine personalities proposed referring to the Byzantine Emperor as the "Emperor of the Hellenes". These largely rhetorical expressions of Hellenic identity were confined within intellectual circles, but were continued by Byzantine intellectuals who participated in

9776-477: The southern shore area of the Black Sea, contemporaneous with and following the failed Greek Asia Minor Campaign , was part of this process of Turkification of the Ottoman Empire and the placement of its economy and trade, then largely in Greek hands under ethnic Turkish control. The terms used to define Greekness have varied throughout history but were never limited or completely identified with membership to

9880-408: The spread of early Christianity in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, and Christianity's early leaders and writers (notably Saint Paul ) were generally Greek-speaking, though none were from Greece proper. However, Greece itself had a tendency to cling to paganism and was not one of the influential centers of early Christianity: in fact, some ancient Greek religious practices remained in vogue until the end of

9984-497: The time Moldavia in Lviv was closely associated with Walachia . The King of Poland Sigismund II Augustus granted him official title of nobility on 12 February 1571 as szlachcic Konstanty Korniakt, also awarded a number of other privileges, thereby establishing the Krucina coat of arms . Krucina , Konstanty Korniakt dealt with international trade, especially from the Ottoman Empire and

10088-505: The total territory and is largely mountainous. The largest mountain range of Greece is the Pindus range , the southern extension of the Dinaric Alps , which forms the spine of the Greek mainland, separating Epirus from Thessaly and Macedonia. The country's tallest mountain is Mount Olympus , which also separates Thessaly from Macedonia. Its highest peak rises to 2,918 m above sea level, making it

10192-512: The two Byzantine Greek brothers, the monks Saints Cyril and Methodius from the port city of Thessalonica , capital of the theme of Thessalonica , who are credited today with formalizing the first Slavic alphabet . Following the Fall of Constantinople on 29 May 1453, many Greeks sought better employment and education opportunities by leaving for the West , particularly Italy , Central Europe , Germany and Russia . Greeks are greatly credited for

10296-461: The west by the Ionian Sea which separates Greece from Italy . The country consists of a mountainous, peninsular mainland jutting out into the Mediterranean Sea at the southernmost tip of the Balkans , and two smaller peninsulas projecting from it: the Chalkidiki and the Peloponnese , which is joined to the mainland by the Isthmus of Corinth . Greece also has many islands , of various sizes,

10400-571: The west by the Myrtoan Sea ; and to the east by the Karpathion Sea. It lies about 160 km south of the Greek mainland. Crete is characterized by a mountain range crossing from west to east, formed by three different subranges: These encompass fertile plateaus, such as Lasithi, Omalos and Nidha; caves such as Diktaion and Idaion ; and gorges such as the Samariá Gorge . The protected area of

10504-469: The western coast of Greece, in the Ionian Sea . The other island, Kythira , lies off the southern tip of the Peloponnese . Kythira is part of the modern administrative region of Attica , not the Ionian Islands ( Ionioi Nisoi ). The Ionian Islands are distinct from the historical region of Ionia , which is today part of western Turkey . Crete is the largest island of Greece and the second largest in

10608-508: Was contact with barbarian (non-Greek) peoples, which was deepened in the new cosmopolitan environment of the multi-ethnic Hellenistic kingdoms. This led to a strong desire among Greeks to organize the transmission of the Hellenic paideia to the next generation. Greek science, technology and mathematics are generally considered to have reached their peak during the Hellenistic period. In

10712-416: Was discernible. The Greeks of classical antiquity idealized their Mycenaean ancestors and the Mycenaean period as a glorious era of heroes, closeness of the gods and material wealth. The Homeric Epics (i.e. Iliad and Odyssey ) were especially and generally accepted as part of the Greek past and it was not until the time of Euhemerism that scholars began to question Homer's historicity. As part of

10816-412: Was the next period of Greek civilization, the beginnings of which are usually placed at Alexander's death. This Hellenistic age , so called because it saw the partial Hellenization of many non-Greek cultures, extending all the way into India and Bactria , both of which maintained Greek cultures and governments for centuries. The end is often placed around conquest of Egypt by Rome in 30 BC, although

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