Name: Geography Now! Greece
Uploaded: 2020-03-30T02:25:33.000Z
Duration: 13 min 47 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

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Greece is sometimes seen as kind of the cradle and birthplace of European civilization and thought.

SO much of everything your see today has some kind of correlation to Greece.

Pretty heavy for a relatively small country in the Balkans, eh?

Greece is located in the southernmost part of the Balkan peninsula

that stretches into the Ionian, Mediterranean, and Aegean Seas,

bordered by 4 countries in the north and east.

The country is divided into 13 regions, with 1 autonomous state that we'll talk about later,

and the capital of Athens, one of the oldest capitals in the world,

where nearly 40% of the entire population lives.

Greece is generally divided into 9 geographic regions.

(not to be confused with this place that we already talked about)

Thessaly, Peloponnese, Epirus, Central Greece, Ionian Islands, the Aegean Islands, and Crete.

As you can probably tell from it's makeup,

Greece is one of, if not the most, seafaring marine emphasized countries in the world.

I mean, they do have the world's largest merchant marine fleet after Japan.

And at any given point in Greece, you are at no point more than 85 miles, or 137 km, from the sea.

Greece has about 2000 island, in which only about 220 are inhabited,

and about 4,000 extra islets, keys, and sea rocks.

Even the ones that are, like, right off the coast of Turkey.

In fact, the only 2 significant islands belonging to Turkey

Now, keep in mind, the Peloponnesian Peninsula is not an island,

it's actually just BARELY connected by the Corinthian Isthmus,

in the city of Corinth, which has a huge canal going through it.

After independence from the Ottoman times,

Greece was VERY intent on making sure they kept everything in the Aegean.

This has historically led to some controversy with Turkey, in regards to things like

the limitation of territorial waters, airspace, the executive economic zones, and the militarization of the islands.

Nonetheless, they've been able to work stuff out...

but some things are still left in a gray zone,

with the only land disputes being over these 2 small scraps of land,

Finally, let's talk about the one autonomous state.

The third finger on the weird monster claw-looking peninsula?

Well, that peninsula is called Halkidiki, and the third finger is Mt. Athos.

Mt. Athos, or "Holy Mountain" is interesting because it's an isolated monastic state,

The number of daily visitors is restricted, you must have a special permit,

and you have to be a dude. No women allowed.

Although, historically, some women have accidentally or intentionally got in,

including this former Greek beauty pageant winner, who dressed up as a man and snuck in.

However, the 3 largest and busiest airports are

and then Thessaloniki Int. coming in at 3rd.

Speaking of Crete, each inhabitant island in Greece kind of has its own charm.

Of course, there are too many things to list,

but a few to consider might be things like:

Corfu, being the most family-friendly island.

Delos, known for being the legendary birthplace of Apollo.

Skyros and Hydra are kind of like the quiet islands, where more people use mules than cars.

Rhodes once held the Colossus, one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world.

Ikaria once tried to become its own country at one point in time.

Naxos and Paros are known for kind of being the windy islands, great for sailing in water sports.

Santorini, with its ridiculously picturesque white marble villas,

and Patmos, the incredibly significant religious sight

in which Jesus's disciple, John, was exiled and wrote the Book of Revelations.

Speaking of which, Greece has the most archaeological sites per capita than any other country in the world,

only ranking behind a few other countries like Turkey and Mexico, in terms of overall sites.

Now, we all know Greece is a a tourist hotspot,

and like France, more tourists than the entire population of Greece visit Greece every single year.

Now, we all know about the Acropolis and the Parthenon,

but other cool sites that stick out include:

St. Theodora's Chapel, with 17 oak trees sprouting with no visible evidence of roots,

the Place of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes,

and of course, hundreds and hundreds of other sights,

and if you know of any, please write them down in the comments below and share.

In the meantime, we gotta get down to the foundations of the country.

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Geography Now! Greece

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