Geography — A Land of Extremes

Greece surprises: 80% of the land area is mountainous. Mount Olympus (2,917 m) is the highest mountain, but dozens of mountain ranges over 2,000 m cross the country — Pindos, Taygetos, Parnassus, Idi (Crete). The mainland is rugged, the coastline so intricately shaped that no point in the country is more than 137 km from the sea.

The numbers are impressive:

• 131,957 km² land area (about the size of Bavaria + Baden-Württemberg)
• 13,676 km coastline — the longest in Europe, the eleventh longest worldwide
• 6,000+ islands, about 227 inhabited
• 5 island groups: Cyclades, Dodecanese, Ionian Islands, North Aegean Islands, Sporades
• Crete is the largest island (8,450 km²), followed by Euboea, Lesbos, Rhodes, and Chios

Geologically, Greece is highly active: The country lies on the junction of the European and African plates. Earthquakes are frequent (the last severe ones: Lesbos 2017, Kos 2017, Thessaly 2021), and there is volcanic activity on Santorini (the volcano is active!), Nisyros, and Milos. The hot springs on Lesbos, Ikaria, and Kythnos are a result of this tectonics.