Facts about Athens
Athens is home to 148 theatrical stages, more than any other European city (including the famous ancient Herodes Atticus Theatre, home to the Athens Festival, which takes place from May to October each year).
The municipality of Athens has an official population of 745,514 with a metropolitan population of 3.8 million (population including the suburbs).
Athens is located within the Attica Periphery which encompasses the most populated region of Greece with about 3.7 million people.
Sometimes the Suburban Rail is considered the fourth line of the Athens Metro.
The bus service operated under Ethel (Greek:????) Thermal Bus Company is the main operator of buses in Athens.
The geomorphology of Athens causes the temperature inversion phenomenon, partly responsible for the air pollution problems the city has faced.
Athens is the capital of Greece, but it is also the capital of the Attica Periphery and the Athens Prefecture.
Today almost half of the population of Greece lives in the Athens metropolitan area, more than two million people.
Athens is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world with a recorded history of at least 3,000 years.
The Greek Parliament (19th century) , the Athens Trilogy (Library, University, Academy) and the new (2004) Athens Olympic Sports Complex are only of these architectural landmarks.
Athens is a melting pot of many different architectural styles, ranging from Greco-Roman to Neo-Classical, and modern styles.
In 1896, Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin revived the modern Olympic Games and chose Athens as the site.
Athens was relatively prosperous during the Crusades, benefiting from Italian and Cuban trade.
By this process, Athens has engulfed many former suburbs and villages in Attica, and continues to do so.
Athens also has a vast number of music venues including the Athens Concert Hall known as the "Megaron Moussikis" that attracts world-famous artists all year round.
Athens was awarded the 2004 Summer Olympics on September 5, 1997 in Lausanne, Switzerland, after having lost a previous bid to host the 1996 Summer Olympics, to Atlanta, United States.
The Athens metropolitan area is the center of economic, financial, industrial, political and cultural life in Greece.
Athens can refer either to the entire metropolitan area or to the Municipality of Athens.
The Athens Metropolitan Area consists of 73 densely populated municipalities, sprawling around the city of Athens to virtually all directions.
Inversions in places like Athens can lead to pollution being trapped closed to the ground.
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.
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.
Athens has some of the cleanest and most pristine beaches in Europe.
The Greater Athens area is now divided into 55 municipalities, the largest of which being the Municipality of Athens or Dimos Athinaion, with a population of 745,514 people.
Plaka, (Greek: ?????), lying just beneath the Acropolis, is famous for its numerous neoclassic buildings, making it one of the most scenic districts of Athens.
The relatively recent and rapid redevelopment of many areas in central Athens has brought the city center back into the limelight.
In 1896 Athens had an approximate population of 123,000 people, and the Games helped boost the city's international image.
Athens was also the birthplace of Socrates, Pericles, Sophocles, and many other prominent philosophers, politicians and writers of the ancient world.
Athens is located at a transition point between the Mediterranean and the Alpine climatic zones.
The Proastiakуs, also known as the Suburban Rail, connects Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport to the city of Corinth, 50 mi (80km) west of Athens, via the central Larissa Train Station.
After a long period of trail and error, Europeans learned how to cultivate tropical orchids.
Athens is served by the state-of-the-art Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport (AIA) located near the town of Spata, in the eastern Mesoghia Plain, some 22 mi (35km) east of Athens.
The next largest municipalities of Athens metropolitan area are the Municipality of Piraeus, the Municipality of Peristeri and the Municipality of Kallithea.
The third line, not run by the Athens Metro, is the ISAP (Greek: ????), the Electric Railway Company.
The Attica Periphery itself is split into four prefectures; they include the Athens Prefecture, Piraeus Prefecture, West Attica Prefecture, and the East Attica Prefecture.
The Mall Athens is a massive mall, located in the northern suburb of Maroussi, that provides a vast number of shops.
During the Middle Ages, Athens experienced decline and then a recovery under the Byzantine Empire.
The Athens Metro, or as it is more commonly known in Greece, the Attiko Metro (Greek: ?????? M????), is one of the most impressive underground mass transit systems in the world.
Large parts of the city center have been redeveloped under a masterplan called Unification of Archaeological Sites of Athens, which has also garnered funding from the EU.
The following is a list of notable sports clubs which have been founded in Athens.
The table below shows the historical population of Athens in modern history.
Throughout its long history, Athens has had many different population levels.
Athens is home to some of Europe’s most prestigious sports clubs, and a number of high-tech sports venues, including Athens Olympic Stadium and Karaiskaki Stadium.
The first branch runs all along the Athens coastline towards the southern suburb of Glyfada while the other one heads towards the Piraeus district of Neo Faliro.
Athens has twice been the host of the summer Olympic Games: in 1896 and 2004.
In 2001-2004 a ring road toll-expressway (Attiki Odos) was gradually completed, extending from the western industrial city of Elefsina all the way to the Athens International Airport, after encircling the city from the north.
Athens has expanded to cover the entire plain, making future growth difficult.
In ancient times the port of Piraeus was a separate city, but it has now been absorbed into greater Athens.
Ancient Athens, in contrast with the modern city with the same name, was a powerful city-state.
The Municipality of Athens is divided into seven municipal districts or demotika diamerismata.
Athens has some of the cleanest and most pristine beaches in Europe.
The patron goddess of Athens, and goddess of wisdom. A huge statue of Athena stood inside the Parthenon in Athens. The capital city of modern Greece. In ancient times Athens was a powerful city-state with its own government, laws, army and navy.
Athena created the olive tree, symbolizing peace and prosperity. The Athenians, under their ruler Cecrops, accepted the olive tree and named the city after Athena.
The first settlement of Athens 3000 BC was situated on the rock of Acropolis. According to the tradition, Athens was founded, when the king Theseus united in a state several settlements of Attica. The last king of ancient Athens was Kodros, who sacrificed his life in order to save the homeland.
People came to the city from all over Greece, and from other countries, to study and to trade. The city's most famous building was the temple called the Parthenon. It stood on a rocky hill called the Acropolis. Inside the Parthenon stood a statue of the city's protector-goddess Athena.
Sparta was famous for military strength. Even Athens agreed with that.) The ancient Greeks believed that each city-state had one or two gods keeping a special eye on that city-state. The god in charge of Athens was Athena, goddess of wisdom.
In ancient Athens, the purpose of education was to produce citizens trained in the arts, to prepare citizens for both peace and war. Other than requiring two years of military training that began at age 18, the state left parents to educate their sons as they saw fit.
Athenian democracy developed around the fifth century BC in the Greek city-state (known as a polis) of Athens, comprising the city of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica, and is the first known democracy in the world.
The Athenian military was the military force of Athens, one of the major city-states (poleis) of Ancient Greece. It was largely similar to other armies of the region.
Sparta is far superior to Athens because their army was fierce and protective, girls received some education and women had more freedom than in other poleis. ... The Spartans believed this made them strong and better mothers. Lastly, Sparta is the best polis of ancient Greece because women had freedom.
The Ancient Greeks grew olives, grapes, figs and wheat and kept goats, for milk and cheese. They ate lots of bread, beans and olives. In the Summer months there were plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables to eat and in the winter they ate dried fruit and food they had stored like apples and lentils.