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The capital and largest city of Greece, in the eastern part of the country near the Saronic Gulf. It was at the height of its cultural achievements and imperial power in the fifth century B.C. during the time of Pericles. Athens became the capital of modern Greece in 1834, two years after the country achieved its independence from Turkey. Population: 745,000.
A prototype of the next-generation PC. Unveiled by Microsoft and HP in the spring of 2003, an Athens device integrates a telephone handset, video camera and buttons on the keyboard for common functions. An Athens PC is quieter, smaller and sleeker than a typical PC, somewhat reminiscent of Apple's G4 Cube. It uses a large, landscape-style flat panel display and connects to a company's PBX. Athens may be released with Microsoft's Vista (Longhorn) OS. See Windows Vista.
For more information on Athens, visit Britannica.com.
Athens (Athenai, Lat. Athenae), the chief city of Attica, in Greece. In classical times the city stood about 5 km. (3 miles) from the sea at its nearest point, in the central plain of Attica, surrounded by mountains on all sides except the south. The citadel of Athens, the Acropolis, sometimes called simply polis, from being the original ‘city’, is a squareish rock rising steeply out of the plain. Immediately west of it is a second hill, the Areopagus, and to the south-west a third, the Pnyx. The Acropolis was continuously inhabited from Neolithic times (c. 5000 BC). In the Mycenaean period a palace was built on it, and it was fortified by a wall in the second half of the thirteenth century BC. (This was during the imagined lifetime of Athens' national hero Theseus; for other myths relating to this early period see ERECHTHEUS, ERECHTHONIUS, and CECROPS.) Archaeological evidence suggests that the city was occupied continuously during the Dark Age, and after 900 BC it was perhaps the most prosperous community in Greece.
In early times Athens, like other Greek states, was ruled by kings. Traditionally the last king was Codrus, who was succeeded by elected archons, and Athens became an aristocracy. Although the archonship was an elected office, the aristocrats, being rich and powerful, monopolized it. The attempt by Cylon to overthrow them and become tyrant (c.632) failed. Despite the legislation of Draco (621) their position was not weakened until the reforms of Solon in 594 BC. These however could not prevent tyranny at Athens, and the popular leader Peisistratus seized power in the mid-sixth century. The period of the Peisistratid tyrants, lasting until 510 BC, saw a considerable increase in the city's material prosperity and cultural standing. After the expulsion of Hippias, the reforms of Cleisthenes established a true democracy.
At the beginning of the fifth century BC Athens was a powerful state. But her intervention in the Ionian Revolt was unsuccessful and exposed her to the menace of Persia (see PERSIAN WARS). The Persian King Xerxes sacked the city in 490, but Athens emerged from the struggle with her fleet intact, her prestige increased, and her position as leader of all the Ionian Greeks acknowledged (see DELIAN LEAGUE). Under Pericles—in effect ruler of the city from 461 to 430—Athens reached its cultural and political zenith. The Parthenon and other celebrated buildings were constructed, Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles were among the writers who flourished, and political offices were open to all—citizens were paid for undertaking their political duties, so that even the poorest could afford to exercise their rights. However, rivalry with Sparta led to the Peloponnesian War (431–404), from which Athens emerged a dependant of Sparta, impoverished, her population severely depleted, all her overseas possessions lost, and her fleet reduced to twelve ships. Sparta imposed an oligarchy on the city, and for eight months in 404–403 Athens was ruled by the Thirty Tyrants. However, she soon regained her democracy and her freedom, and in 376 won back her supremacy at sea by a decisive naval victory over Sparta near Naxos.
The most prominent Athenian statesman of this period was Callistratus, whose general policy was based on harmony with Sparta and a balance of power between that city and Thebes, which was now aspiring to the leadership of Greece. Athens, having supported the Thebans until their victory over the Spartans at Leuctra in 371, was more influenced by jealousy of neighbouring Thebes than by the old rivalry with Sparta. In the ensuing struggle between these two, Athens was in alliance with Sparta in 369, and an Athenian contingent fought on the Spartan side at Mantinea in 362. By this time Macedon was rising in importance and threatening the Athenian position in the north Aegean. Athens had to choose between two policies: to attempt to recover the leadership of Greece, or to come to terms with Philip II of Macedonia, with some loss of independence. The ‘peace’ party included the statesman Eubulus, the orator Aeschinēs, the general Phocion, and the statesman Philocratēs (see also ISOCRATES); the ‘war’ party was led by the orators Demosthenes, Lycurgus, and Hypereides. The eloquence of Demosthenes prevailed, and a final battle between Athens and Thebes on the one side and Philip on the other was fought at Chaeronea in 338. Athens was defeated, and was obliged to accept Philip's moderate terms (the loss of the Hellespont) and join the Hellenic confederacy which he organized.
The death of Philip's son Alexander the Great in 323 appeared to give the Greeks an opportunity to recover their freedom, but in the so-called Lamian War (323–322) Athens with the other Greek states was defeated at Crannon by Antipater. Demosthenes took poison to avoid capture. The democrats were reinstated at Athens under the brief rule of Polyperchon (the immediate successor of Antipater as regent of Macedonia), but Cassander, Antipater's son, restored in the main his father's constitution and appointed as his governor at Athens in 317 the distinguished Athenian citizen Demetrius of Phalerum, a friend of the philosopher Aristotle. His ten years' governorship was a period of peace and prosperity for the city. Yet when Demetrius Poliorcētēs, son of Antigonus, captured the city from Cassander in 307 he was looked upon by the Athenians as a liberator, and was granted divine honours.
The fourth century shows the last phase of the intellectual and cultural preeminence of Athens. The character of her intellectual activity had become less creative and more analytical and critical. It was the age of Plato and Aristotle, the great orators, and New Comedy. Art became more realistic, less infused with the old religious ideas, no longer centred on the interests of the city state.
The third century BC saw the end of the political importance of Athens and after the defeat of the Achaean League by the Roman consul Mummius in 146 BC Greece became a Roman protectorate (not a province until the time of Augustus). Athens and Sparta did not have to pay taxes to Rome, however, and there was a revival of material prosperity. This prosperous period came to an end with the Mithridatic War of 89–85, when Athens, which had sided with Mithridates, was sacked and in part destroyed by the Roman general Sulla. Greece suffered severely, both from Sulla and from the barbarian allies of Mithridates, who sacked Delphi. Even greater ruin followed from the Roman civil wars of the first century BC, and endured until the emperor Augustus made Greece a Roman province in 27 BC.
In spite of her political decline Athens retained much of her intellectual prestige and remained pre-eminent for the study of philosophy. She was patronized in the second century BC by the Attalids of Pergamum, who adorned the city with colonnades and sculptures. It became fashionable for Romans to go to the philosophical schools of Athens as to a university. Atticus lived there for many years; Cicero and his son and Horace were among those who studied in the city. Horace, and in a later age Lucian, appreciated the peaceful charm of Athens compared with the turmoil of Rome. Athens enjoyed some revival of her former glories in the second century AD under the emperor Hadrian and the Antonines, and in the fourth century Julian the Apostate was a lover of the city. The end of her period of intellectual eminence came in AD 529, when the Christian emperor Justinian ordered the closing of her schools of philosophy.
The modern capital of Greece, situated at the upper corner of a small coastal plain on the western side of the peninsula of Attica. The site has an exceptionally long, more or less continuous, history extending back into prehistoric times. Numerous excavations and surveys have been carried out in the city, the biggest programme of work in the late 20th century being that connected with the construction of a metro.
Traces of occupation in late Neolithic and Mycenaean times have been found, but it is from the 7th century bc onwards that the town develops into a major city-state and enters a period of alternating phases of success and failure that lasts down to Roman times. Amongst the first buildings to be set out in the new Hellenistic city were the agora and the monumental temples on the acropolis. At the same time Athenian black-figure ware of high artistic quality was developed and came to be widely traded in the Mediterranean world. Red-figure ware succeeded it from about 500 bc. The sack of Athens by the Persians in 480 bc provided a major setback with most of the major buildings and structures flattened. Outstanding buildings constructed in the 5th-century rebirth of Athens include the Parthenon, Athens, Greece and Erechtheum on the acropolis. After the defeat of Athens by Sparta in the Peloponnesian Wars (432–404 bc) building nearly ceased again, but from the early 4th century new private finances were found and the city again entered a period of prosperity. This tradition continued down the centuries: the east side of the agora was filled with a stoa financed by Attalos, king of Pergamum, in the 2nd century, while, for example, Ptolemy VI, the Roman emperor Hadrian, and others built libraries.
[Sum.: J. M. Hurwit, 1999, The Athenian Acropolis: history, mythology and archaeology from the Neolithic era to the present. Cambridge: CUP]
The main landmark of Athens is the acropolis (412 ft/126 m high), which dominates the city and on which stand the remains of the Parthenon, the propylaea, and the Erechtheum. Occupying the southern part of Athens, the Acropolis is ringed by the other chief landmarks of the ancient city—the Pnyx, where the citizens' assemblies were held; the Areopagus; the Theseum of Hephaesteum, a well-preserved Doric temple of the 5th cent. B.C.; the old Agora and the Roman forum; the temple of Zeus or Olympieum (begun under Pisistratus in the 6th cent. B.C. and completed in the 2d cent. A.D. under Hadrian, whose arch stands nearby); the theatre of Dionysius (the oldest in Greece); and the Odeum of Herodes Atticus.
There are many Roman remains in the “new” quarter, built east of the original city walls by Emperor Hadrian (1st cent. A.D.); there the modern royal palace and gardens also stand. The stadium is E of the Ilissus River. Parts of the ancient city walls are still visible, particularly at the Dipylon, the sacred gate on the road to Eleusis; however, the Long Walls connecting Athens and Piraiévs have almost entirely disappeared. The most noteworthy Byzantine structures are the churches of St. Theodora and of the Holy Apostles, both built in the 12th cent. Athens is the see of an archbishop who presides over the Synod of the Greek Orthodox Church. The city is the seat of the National and Capodistrian Univ. (1837), a polytechnic institute, an academy of sciences, several schools of archaeology, and many museums and libraries. A nuclear research center is nearby, at Aghia Paraskevi.
History
The cultural legacy of ancient Athens to the world is incalculable; to a great extent the references to the Greek heritage that abound in the culture of Western Europe are to Athenian civilization. Athens, named after its patron goddess Athena, was inhabited in the Bronze Age. Its citizens later proudly claimed that their ancestors had lived in the city even before the settlements of Attica were molded into a single state (according to legend, by Theseus).
Early History
According to tradition, Athens was governed until c.1000 B.C. by Ionian kings, who had gained suzerainty over all Attica. After the Ionian kings Athens was rigidly governed by its aristocrats through the archontate (see archons), until Solon began to enact liberal reforms in 594 B.C. Solon abolished serfdom, modified the harsh laws attributed to Draco (who had governed Athens c.621 B.C.), and altered the economy and constitution to give power to all the propertied classes, thus establishing a limited democracy. His economic reforms were largely retained when Athens came under (560–511 B.C.) the rule of the tyrant Pisistratus and his sons Hippias and Hipparchus. During this period the city's economy boomed and its culture flourished. Building on the system of Solon, Cleisthenes then established (c.506 B.C.) a democracy for the freemen of Athens, and the city remained a democracy during most of the years of its greatness.
A Great City-State
The Persian Wars (500–449 B.C.) made Athens the strongest Greek city-state. Much smaller and less powerful than Sparta at the start of the wars, Athens was more active and more effective in the fighting against Persia. The Athenian heroes Miltiades, Themistocles, and Cimon were largely responsible for building the city's strength. In 490 B.C. the Greek army defeated Persia at Marathon. A great Athenian fleet won a major victory over the Persians off the island of Salamis (480 B.C.). The powerful fleet also enabled Athens to gain hegemony in the Delian League, which was created in 478–477 B.C. through the confederation of many city-states; in succeeding years the league was transformed into an empire headed by Athens. The city arranged peace with Persia in 449 B.C. and with its chief rival, Sparta, in 445 B.C., but warfare with smaller Greek cities continued.
During the time of Pericles (443–429 B.C.) Athens reached the height of its cultural and imperial achievement; Socrates and the dramatists Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides were active. The incomparable Parthenon was built, and sculpture and painting flourished. Athens became a center of intellectual life. However, the rivalry with Sparta had not ended, and in 431 B.C. the Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Athens began.
The war went badly for Athens from the start. The Long Walls built to protect the city and its port of Piraiévs saved the city itself as long as the fleet was paramount, but the allies of Athens fell away and the land empire Pericles had tried to build already had crumbled before his death in 429 B.C. The war dragged on under the leadership of Cleon and continued even after the collapse of the expedition against Sicily, urged (415 B.C.) by Alcibiades. The Peloponnesian War finally ended in 404 B.C. with Athens completely humbled, its population cut in half, and its fleet reduced to a dozen ships.
Under the dictates of Sparta, Athens was compelled to tear down the Long Walls and to accept the government of an oligarchy called the Thirty Tyrants. However, the city recovered rapidly. In 403 B.C. the Thirty Tyrants were overthrown by Thrasybulus, and by 376 B.C. Athens again had a fleet, had rebuilt the Long Walls, had re-created the Delian League, and had won a naval victory over Sparta. Sparta also lost power as a result of its defeat (371 B.C.) by Thebes at Leuctra; and, although Athens did not again achieve hegemony over Greece, it did have a short period of great prosperity and comfort.
The Decline of Athens
The growth of Macedon's power under Philip II heralded the demise of Athens as a major power. Despite the pleas by Demosthenes to the citizens of Athens to stand up against Macedon, Athens was decisively defeated by Philip at Chaeronea in 338 B.C. The city did not dare dispute the mastery of Philip's son and successor, Alexander the Great. After his death Athens revolted (323–322 B.C.) against control by Macedon, but the revolt was quashed, and Athens lost its remaining dependencies and declined into a provincial city. Its last bid for greatness (266–262 B.C.) was firmly suppressed by Antigonus II, king of Macedon.
Through the troubled times of the Peloponnesian War and the wars against Philip, Athenian achievements in philosophy, drama, and art had continued. Aristophanes wrote comedies, Plato taught at the Academy, Aristotle compiled an incredible store of information, and Thucydides wrote a great history of the Peloponnesian War. As the city's glory waned in the 3d cent. B.C., its earlier contributions were spread over the world in Hellenistic culture.
Athens became a minor ally of growing Rome, and a period of stagnation was broken only when the city unwisely chose to support Mithradates VI of Pontus against Rome. As a result, Athens was sacked by the Roman general Sulla in 86 B.C. Nevertheless, Athens sent out many teachers to Rome and retained a certain faded glory as a moderately prosperous small city in the backwash of the empire. It remained so until the time when the Eastern Empire began to fall to the barbarians. Athens was captured in A.D. 395 by the Visigoths under Alaric I.
From Byzantine to Ottoman Rule
Athens became a provincial capital of the Byzantine Empire and a center of religious learning and devotion. Following the creation (1204) of the Latin Empire of Constantinople (see Constantinople, Latin Empire of), Athens passed (1205) to Othon de la Roche, a French nobleman from Franche-Comté, who was made megaskyr [great lord] of Athens and Thebes. His nephew and successor, Guy I, obtained the ducal title, and the duchy of Athens, under Guy I and his successors, enjoyed great prosperity while becoming thoroughly French in its institutions. In 1311 the duchy was captured by a band of Catalan soldier-adventurers who offered (1312) the ducal title to King Frederick II of Sicily, a member of the house of Aragón. Members of the house of Aragón carried the title, but Athens was in fact governed by the “Catalan Grand Company,” which also acquired (1318) the neighboring duchy of Neopatras.
The French feudal culture disappeared, and Athens sank into insignificance and poverty, particularly after 1377, when the succession was contested in civil war. Peter IV of Aragón assumed sovereignty in 1381 but ruled from Barcelona. On his initiative, the devastated duchy was settled by Albanians. Athens again prospered briefly after its conquest in 1388 by Nerio I Acciajuoli, lord of Corinth, a Florentine noble. Under the Acciajuoli family's rule numerous Florentine merchants established themselves in Athens. However, the fall of the Acropolis to the Ottoman Turks in 1458 marked the beginning of nearly four centuries of Ottoman rule, and Athens once more declined. Venice, which had held Athens from 1394 to 1402, recovered it briefly from the Turks in 1466 and besieged it in 1687–88. During the siege the Parthenon, used by the Turks as a powder magazine, was largely blown up in a bombardment.
Modern Athens
Modern Athens was constructed only after 1834, when it became the capital of a newly independent Greece. Otto I, first king of the Hellenes (1832–62), rebuilt much of the city, and the first modern Olympic games were held there in 1896. The population grew rapidly in the 1920s, when Greek refugees arrived from Turkey. The city's inhabitants suffered extreme hardships during the German occupation (1941–44) in World War II, but the city escaped damage in the war and in the country's civil troubles of 1944–50.
The 1950s and 60s brought unbridled expansion. Land clearance for suburban building caused runoff and flooding, requiring the modernization of the sewer system. The Mornos River was dammed and a pipeline over 100 mi (160 km) long was built to Athens, supplementing the inadequate water supply. The development of a highway system facilitated the proliferation of automobiles, resulting in increased air pollution. This accelerated the deterioration of ancient buildings and monuments, requiring preservation and conservation programs as well as traffic bans in parts of the city. The Ellinikon airport was modernized and enlarged to accommodate increased tourism. A strong earthquake jolted the city in 1999, and in 2004 the summer Olympic games were held there again.
Bibliography
The Greek geographer Pausanias wrote an extensive description of ancient Greece. Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, and Polybius were great Greek historians. Modern general works on ancient Greece include those of J. B. Bury and Michael Rostovtzeff. See also A. H. M. Jones, Athenian Democracy (1957, repr. 1986); J. C. Hill, The Ancient City of Athens, Its Topography and Monuments (rev. ed. 1969); C. M. Bowra, Periclean Athens (1971); R. Meiggs, The Athenian Empire (1972); W. S. Ferguson, Hellenistic Athens (1986); D. Kagan, The Fall of the Athenian Empire (1987); M. H. Hansen, The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes (tr. 1999). See also bibliography under Greece.
Capital of Greece in east-central Greece on the plain of Attica, overlooking an arm of the Mediterranean Sea. Named after its patron goddess, Athena, Athens is Greece's largest city and its cultural, administrative, and economic center.
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Local Time: May 17, 9:54 PM
A leading city of ancient Greece, famous for its learning, culture, and democratic institutions. The political power of Athens was sometimes quite limited, however, especially after its defeat by Sparta in the Peloponnesian War. Pericles was a noted ruler of Athens. (See also under “World Geography.”)
| Athens (Αθήνα) | |
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 Acropolis of Athens |
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| Coordinates | Coordinates: |
| Time zone: | EET/EEST ([[UTC+2]]/[[UTC+3|3]]) |
| Elevation (min-max): | - m (230 - 1109 ft) |
| Government | |
| Country: | Greece |
| Periphery: | Attica |
| Prefecture: | Athens |
| Districts: | 7 |
| Mayor: | Nikitas Kaklamanis (ND) (since: January 1, 2007) |
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| - Area:[1] | km² ( sq mi) |
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| Codes | |
| Postal codes: | 10x xx, 11x xx, 120 xx |
| Area codes: | 21 |
| License plate codes: | Yxx, Zxx, Ixx (excluding INx) |
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Athens, the capital and largest city in Greece, dominates the Attica periphery: as one of the world's oldest cities, its recorded history spans at least 3,000 years.
Today the Greek capital, Europe's 8th largest conurbation,[1] is rapidly becoming a leading business centre in the European Union. This bustling and cosmopolitan metropolis with an urban population of 3.3 million and a metropolitan population of about 3.8 million people is central to economic, financial, industrial, political and cultural life in Greece. The city proper has a land area of km² ( sq mi), while the urban agglomeration of Athens spans km² ( sq mi).[2]
Ancient Athens was a powerful city-state. A center for the arts, learning and philosophy, home of Plato's Akademia and Aristotle's Lyceum,[3][4] Athens was also the birthplace of Socrates, Pericles, Sophocles and its many other prominent philosophers, writers and politicians of the ancient world. It is widely referred to as the cradle of Western Civilization,[5] and the birthplace of democracy,[6] largely due to the impact of its cultural and political achievements during the 5th and 4th centuries BC on the rest of the then known European continent.[7]
The heritage of the classical era is still evident in the city, portrayed through a number of ancient monuments and artworks; the most famous of all the Parthenon on the Acropolis, standing as an epic landmark of western civilization. The city also retains a vast variety of Roman and Byzantine monuments, as well as a small number of remaining Ottoman monuments projecting the city's long history across the centuries. Landmarks of the modern era are also present, dating back to 1830 (the establishment of the independent Greek state), and taking in the Greek Parliament (19th century) and the Athens Trilogy (Library, University, and Academy).
Athens was the host city of the first modern-day Olympic Games in 1896, and 108 years later it welcomed home the Summer Olympics, with great success.[8]
In ancient Greek, the name of Athens was αἱ Ἀθῆναι
IPA [haɪ
atʰɛ̑ːnaɪ], related tο ἡ Ἀθηνᾶ IPA
[hɛː atʰɛːnȃː] and its dialectal variant ἡ Ἀθήνη
IPA [hɛː
atʰɛ́ːnɛː], the Attic and Ionic names
respectively of the goddess Athena, the goddess of war and wisdom. The city's name may have been
in the plural, like those of αἱ Θῆβαι (Thêbai) and
αἱ Μυκῆναι (Mukênai), because it consisted of several parts. In
the 19th century, αι Αθήναι was formally re-adopted as the city's name. Since the official abandonment of
The history of Athens is one of the longest of any city in, Europe or the world; it has been continuously inhabited for at least 3,000 years. Athens became the leading city of ancient Greece in the first millennium BC, with its cultural achievements during the 5th century BC laying the foundations of Western civilization. During the Middle Ages, the city experienced decline and then recovery under the Byzantine Empire, and was relatively prosperous during the Crusades, benefiting from Italian trade; after a long period of decline under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, Athens re-emerged in the 19th century as the capital of the independent Greek state, and in 1896 hosted the first modern Olympic Games. In the 1920s a number of refugees, expelled from Asia Minor after the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922), swelled Athens' population; nevertheless it was most particularly following the Second World War, and from the 1950s and 1960s, that the population of the city exploded, and Athens experienced a gradual expansion in all directions. In the 1980s it became evident that smog from factories and an ever increasing fleet of automobiles, as well as a lack of adequate free space due to overcongestion, had evolved into the city's most important challenges. A series of anti-pollution measures taken by the city's authorities in the 1990s, combined with a substantial improvement of the city's infrastructure (including the Attiki Odos ring road, the dramatic expansion of the Athens Metro, and the brand new Athens International Airport), alleviated pollution considerably and transformed Athens into a much more functional city.
Athens sprawls across the central plain of Attica, often referred to as the Attica Basin which is bound by Mount Aegaleo in the west, Mount Parnitha in the north, Mount Penteli in the northeast, Mount Hymettus in the east, and the Saronic Gulf in the southwest. The capital has expanded to cover the entire plain, making future growth difficult. The geomorphology of Athens causes the so-called temperature inversion phenomenon, and along with the failure of the Greek Government to control industrial pollution is responsible for the air pollution problems the city has recently faced.[9][10] (Los Angeles and Mexico City also suffer with similar geomorphology inversion problems).[10] The pollution of Athens was at one point so destructive, that according to the then Greek Minister of Culture, Constantine Trypanis, the carved details on the five caryatids of the Erechtheum have seriously degenerated, while the face of the horseman on the Parthenon's west side is all but obliterated.[11] A series of strict measures then taken by the authorities of the city throughout the 1990s resulted in a dramatic improvement of air quality; the appearance of smog (or nefos as the Athenians used to call it) has become an increasingly rare phenomenon.
Athens is located at a transition point between the Mediterranean and the Alpine climatic zones. The city enjoys a typical Mediterranean climate, with the greatest amounts of precipitation mainly occurring from mid-October to mid-April; any precipitation is sparse during summer, and falls generally in the form of showers and/or thunderstorms. Due to its location in a strong rain shadow, however, the Athenian climate is very dry compared with most of mediterranean Europe. The mountainous northern suburbs, for their part, experience a somewhat differentiated climate, with generally lower temperatures and more substantial snowfalls in winter. Fog is highly unusual in the city centre, but is more frequent to the east, behind the Hymettus mountain range.
Snowfalls occur every few years, though these do not normally lead to significant, if any, disruption. Nonetheless, the city has experienced its share of snow, not least in the past decade; during the blizzards of March 1987, February 1992, January 2002, February 2004 and January 2006, snow literally blanketed parts of the metropolitan area.
Spring and fall (autumn) are considered ideal seasons for sightseeing and all kinds of outdoor activities. Summers can be particularly hot and at times prone to smog and pollution related conditions (however, much less so than in the past). The average summer daytime maximum temperature is 90 °F (32 °C), and heatwaves are relatively common, occurring generally during the months of July and/or August, when hot air masses sweep across Greece from the south or southwest. On such days only temperature maxima soar over 100 °F (38 °C).
The all-time high temperatures for the metropolitan area of Athens of °C
(
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Avg high °C (°F) | 12.5 (54.5) | 13.5 (56.3) | 15.7 (60.3) | 20.2 (68.4) | 26.0 (78.8) | 31.1 (88.0) | 33.5 (92.3) | 33.2 (91.8) | 29.2 (84.6) | 23.3 (73.9) | 18.4 (64.6) | 14.1 (57.4) | 22.6 (72.7) |
| Avg low °C (°F) | 5.2 (41.4) | 5.4 (41.7) | 6.7 (44.1) | 9.6 (49.3) | 13.9 (57.0) | 18.2 (64.8) | 20.8 (69.4) | 20.7 (69.3) | 17.3 (63.1) | 13.4 (56.1) | 9.8 (49.6) | 6.8 (44.2) | 12.3 (54.1) |
| Source: Hellenic National Meteorological Service [1] | |||||||||||||
Air pollution remains to some degree an issue for Athens, particularly on the hottest summer days. Nevertheless, widespread measures taken by the authorities throughout the 1990s have dramatically improved air quality. In late June 2007, the Attica region experienced a number of brush fires, including one that burned a significant portion of a large forested national park in Mount Parnitha - considered critical to maintaining better air in Athens all year round. Damage to the park has led to worries over a stalling in the improvement of air quality in the city.
Athens tap water is safe, and of very good quality. It is comparable to or exceeds the quality of the best US city water systems sourced from higher elevations, and is considered one of the best municipal waters in Europe.
Athens is the capital of Greece, but it is also the capital of the Attica Periphery and the Athens Prefecture. The city has been the capital of Greece since 1834, succeeding Nafplion, the city that was provisional capital during the Greek War of Independence ending in 1832.
Athens is located within the Attica Periphery, which encompasses the most populated region of Greece, with around 3.7 million people. The Attica Periphery itself is split into four prefectures; they include the Athens Prefecture, Piraeus Prefecture, West Attica Prefecture, and the East Attica Prefecture. It is, however, one of the smaller peripheries in Greece, with an area of km² ( sq mi).
The Athens Prefecture is the most populous of all the Greek Prefectures, accounting for well over 2.6 million of the 3.7 million in the Attica Periphery. Athens can refer either to the entire metropolitan area, or to the Municipality of Athens. The next largest municipalities of Athens metropolitan area are the Municipality of Piraeus, the Municipality of Peristeri, and the Municipality of Kallithea. Each of these municipalities has an elected district council and a directly elected mayor.
The modern city of Athens consists of what was once a conglomeration of distinct towns and villages that gradually expanded and merged into a single large metropolis; most of this expansion occurred during the second half of the 20th century. The Greater Athens area is now divided into 55 municipalities, the largest of which is the Municipality of Athens or Dimos Athinaion, with a population of 745,514 people.
Dora Bakoyanni, of the conservative New Democracy party, was Mayor of Athens from 1 January 2003 until 15 February 2006, when she joined the Greek cabinet as Minister of Foreign Affairs. During her tenure, she had been the 76th Mayor of Athens, and the first female ever to hold that post in the city's history; later replaced by Theodoros Behrakis. The next municipal elections took place in October 2006, at which point Nikitas Kaklamanis took over as the city's mayor.
The Municipality of Athens is divided into seven municipal districts , or demotika diamerismata. The 7-district division, is mainly used for administrative purposes. For Athenians the most popular way of dividing the city proper is through its neighbourhoods (usually referred to as areas in English), each with its own distinct history and characteristics. Those include Pangrati, Ambelokipi, Exarcheia, Ano Patissia, Kato Patissia, Ilissia, Ano and Kato Petralona, Mets, Koukaki and Kypseli, the world's second most densely populated urban area. For a traveller unfamiliar with Athens, familiarity with the contours of these neighbourhoods can often be particularly useful in both exploring and understanding the city.
The municipality of Athens has an official population of 745,514 with a metropolitan population of 3.8 million (population including the suburbs). The actual population, however, is believed to be higher, because during census-taking (carried out once every 10 years) some Athenian residents travel back to their birthplaces, and register as local citizens there.[12] It is estimated that the population of Athens is actually around 5 million people.[13] Also unaccounted for is an undefined number of unregistered immigrants originating mainly from Albania and other Eastern European countries.[14][15]
The ancient site of the city is centered on the rocky hill of the acropolis. In ancient times the port of Piraeus was a separate city, but it has now been absorbed into greater Athens. The rapid expansion of the city initiated in the 1950s and 1960s continues today, because of the transition from an agricultural to an industrial nation.[16] The expansion is now particularly toward the East and North East (a tendency greatly related to the new Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport and the Attiki Odos, the freeway that cuts across Attica). By this process Athens has engulfed many former suburbs and villages in Attica, and continues to do so.Throughout its long history, Athens has experienced many different population levels. The table below shows the historical population of Athens in recent times.
| Year | City population | Urban population | Metro population |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1833 | 4,000[17] | - | - |
| 1870 | 44,500[17] | - | - |
| 1896 | 123,000[17] | - | - |
| 1921 (Pre-Population exchange) | 473,000[17] | - | - |
| 1921 (Post-Population exchange) | 718,000[17] | - | - |
| 1971 | 867,023[18] | - | - |
| 1981 | 885,737 | - | - |
| 1991 | 772,072 | - | 3,444,358[19] |
| 2001 | 745,514[20] | 3,130,841[20] | 3,761,810[20] |
Even though most Athenians are unaware of the fact, the city is one of the world's main centres of archaeological research. Apart from national institutions, like Athens University, the Archaeological Society, several archaeological Museums (including the National Archaeological Museum, the Cycladic Museum, the Epigraphic Museum, the
Byzantine Museum, as well as museums at the ancient Agora, Acropolis, and Kerameikos), the city is also home to the
Athens has been a popular destination for travellers since antiquity. Over the past decade, the infrastructure and social amenities of Athens have been radically improved, in part due to the city's successful bid to stage the 2004 Olympic Games. The Greek Government, aided by the EU, has funded major infrastructure projects such as the state-of-the-art Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport,[21] the massive expansion of the Athens Metro system,[22] and the new Attiki Odos Motorway.[22] Home to a vast number of 5 and 4 star hotels, the city is currently the 6th most visited capital.
| Club | Sport | Founded | League | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Panathinaikos | Football | 1908 | Super League Greece | Apostolos Nikolaidis Stadium |
| Olympiacos | Football | 1925 | Super League Greece | Karaiskakis Stadium |
| AEK | Football | 1924 | Super League Greece | Athens Olympic Stadium |
| Panionios | Football | 1890 | Super League Greece | Nea Smyrni Stadium |
| Atromitos | Football | 1950 | Super League Greece | Peristeri Stadium |
| Egaleo FC | Football | 1930 | B Ethniki | Egaleo Stadium |
| Panathinaikos BC | Basketball | 1908 | A1 Ethniki | Athens Olympic Stadium |
| Olympiacos | Basketball | 1925 | A1 Ethniki |
