greece geography

Mainland Greece is a mountainous land almost completely surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea. Greece has more than 1400 islands. The country has mild winters and long, hot and dry summers. The ancient Greeks were a seafaring people. They traded with other countries around the Mediterranean. Many cities created settlements overseas known as colonies. There are more than 2,000 large and smaller greek islands scattered both in the Aegean and the Ionian Sea. Most of them are located in the Aegean between the mainland and Turkey. The largest Greek island is Crete and the second largest is Evia. Lesvos and Rhodes come next. Some of the most famous islands are Santorini, Mykonos, Rhodes, Crete, Zakynthos and Corfu.

• Greece is a mountainous peninsula, mountains cover three-quarters of Greece
• approximately 2000 islands in the Ionian and Aegean Seas
• this combination shaped Greece’s culture
• they had many skilled sailors and shipbuilders also farmers, metalworkers, weavers, potters
• they had poor / limited natural resources, so they needed to trade
• it was difficult to unite the ancient Greeks because of the terrain
• they developed small, independent communities (city-states) that’s who they were loyal to