Source: MAPS IN MINUTES™ © RH Publications (1997)

A maritime, largely mountainous country in the south-east of Europe, bounded by Albania, Macedonia, and Bulgaria to the north, and by Turkey to the east. The many islands round its long coastline include Corfu, Crete, the Cyclades, and the Sporades. The peninsula is bounded by the Ionian, Mediterranean, and Aegean Seas.

Physical

Thrace in the north-east is mainly low-lying, as are the river deltas of Macedonia. Most of the mainland, however, is a peninsula of mountains, the highest being Olympus. These continue southward beyond the Gulf of Corinth and its isthmus and on to the high Peloponnese peninsula. In winter the northern plateaux are cold and suitable only for sheep grazing. One-third of the country can be cultivated; in areas where the climate is truly Mediterranean, crops include tobacco, tomatoes, and vines.

Economy

Both agriculture and industry are important to the Greek economy, and the manufacturing sector experienced large growth in the 1980s. However, tourism is the most important industry and a substantial earner of foreign exchange. Exports include food and drink, manufactured goods, oil products, chemicals, and textiles. However, the economy has contracted by over a quarter since the Credit Crunch and the consequent financial crisis in Greece.

History

Greek history begins c.2000–1700 bc with the arrival in the mainland of Greek-speaking peoples from the north. There followed the Mycenaean civilization which flourished until overthrown by the Dorians at the end of the 12th century bc. After an obscure period of history (the Greek ‘Dark Ages’) the city-state (polis) emerged.

In the early 5th century the Greeks repulsed Persian attempts to annex their land. Athens and Sparta were now the major sea and land powers respectively, and after a prolonged struggle it was Sparta who by 404 had crushed Athens and destroyed the Athenian empire in the Peloponnesian War. In the 4th century Thebes toppled Sparta, but Greece as a whole was soon forced to bow before an outside conqueror—Philip II of Macedonia. After the death of his son, Alexander III (the Great), the Greek world was dominated by the Hellenistic kingdoms with the cities of Greece playing comparatively minor parts in the power struggle. Then Rome intervened in the Macedonian wars, until the year 146 bc saw the defeat of the Achaean League, the sacking of Corinth, and the final incorporation of Greece into the Roman empire. Later it was part of the Byzantine empire, but fell under the control of the Ottoman Turks in 1460. It remained under Turkish jurisdiction, apart from a brief period in the late 17th and early 18th centuries when Venice controlled parts of the country, until independence in the early 19th century.

The Greek War of Independence (1821–33) resulted in the establishment of an independent Greece, with Duke Otto of Bavaria as king. Otto was deposed in 1862 and a Danish prince, William, installed, taking the title George I of the Hellenes (1863–1913). A military coup established a republic (1924–35). George II was restored in 1935 but fled into exile in 1941. After repulsing an attempted invasion by Italian forces in 1940, Greece was occupied by the Germans in World War II, and the country suffered bitter fighting between rival factions of communists and royalists. The monarchy was restored by the British in 1946, and civil war broke out, lasting until 1949, when the communists were defeated. With the help of aid from the USA, recovery and reconstruction began. In 1967 a military coup took place. King Constantine II fled and government by a military junta (the ‘Colonels’) lasted for seven years, the monarchy being abolished in 1973. A civilian republic was established in 1974 and in the 1981 general election Andreas Papandreou became the first socialist Prime Minister, remaining in office until 1989. Greece had joined the European Community in 1981, whose agricultural policies boosted its economy; but as tariff barriers were reduced, a balance-of-payments crisis developed. During 1992 strong opposition emerged against the name of the proposed republic of Macedonia, since Greece regards its own northern province as having sole right to the name. This issue and that of the ailing economy led ultimately to the fall of the right-wing government of Constantine Mitsotakis (1918-2017) in June 1993. Andreas Papandreou was subsequently returned to power. A dispute over territorial waters in the Aegean threatened war with Turkey in late 1994. In 1996 Costas Simitis became Prime Minister after Papandreou resigned because of ill-health. He retained power until a Conservative victory in the 2004 elections, when he was replaced by Costas Karamanlis. Greece adopted the euro as its currency in 2002.

In the early 2000s the Greek economy grew rapidly through increased consumer and government spending financed by the cheap credit available on global markets. The Credit Crunch of 2008 removed this prop, and Greece’s public finances deteriorated rapidly. The crisis was compounded by two factors: the revelation that Greece’s published financial statistics were misleading; and the extreme political difficulty in implementing the harsh cuts to social benefits necessary to stabilize Greek public finances. In 2009–10 Greece’s credit rating was progressively downgraded to “junk” status and it could no longer borrow from the bond markets. The possibility that Greece might default on its debts and be forced to withdraw from the euro precipitated the Eurozone Crisis, and since 2010 two emergency loans have been made to Greece by the EU and IMF. In return Greece promised to introduce austerity measures to control its deficit. Although these did not meet the creditors’ demands, their severity caused a severe economic contraction, political instability, and social unrest. Two elections in 2012 produced strong support for extremist parties that rejected the bailout terms, and the government continued to experience difficulties in implementing the measures demanded by Greece’s creditors. However, by 2014 sufficient progress had been made for Greece to resume borrowing on the global bond markets. At the end of 2014 parliament was unable to elect a new president and Samaras called an election for January 2015. The far left Syriza party campaigned vigorously against austerity and almost succeeded in gaining an overall majority. Its leader, Alexis Tsipras, became prime minister and formed a coalition with the small right-wing Independent Greeks party. Tsipras and his finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, tried to persuade the EU and IMF to extend loans with limited austerity conditions attached but gained few concessions. The bailout terms were rejected in a referendum held in July but the government were subsequently obliged to accept very similar terms. . In a snap general election in September 2015 Syriza was returned to power with 35% of the vote, with Tspiras claiming a mandate to maintain the programme of fiscal reform, despite only a 55% turnout of voters.In late 2015 the economy began to stabilize but Greece was hit by a new crisis, that of the ever-growing flow of Syrian migrants coming from Turkey to nearby Greek islands. By 2015 over 770,000 had arrived. The flow declined rapidly in 2016 after the EU and Turkey agreed on control measures. In2017 attention switched back to the economy, with doubts over whether the country would meet IMF requirements for additional funds.