Athens [ /
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/;[2] Modern Greek Modern Greek refers to the varieties of Greek spoken in the modern era. The beginning of the "modern" period of the language is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic modern features of the language had been present: Αθήνα, Athina, IPA: /aˈθina/, Katharevousa Katharevousa , is a form of the Greek language conceived in the early 19th century as a compromise between Ancient Greek and the Modern Greek of the time, with a vocabulary largely based on ancient forms, but a much-simplified grammar. Originally, it was widely used both for literary and official purposes, though seldom in daily language. In the 20: Ἀθῆναι, Athine, Ancient Greek Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning the Archaic , Classical (c. 5th–4th centuries BC), and Hellenistic (c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD) periods of ancient Greece and the ancient world. It is predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek. Its Hellenistic phase is known as Koine (&: Ἀθῆναι, Athēnai (plural)], the capital A capital city is the area of a country, province, region, or state, regarded as enjoying primary status; although there are exceptions, a capital is almost always a city which physically encompasses the offices and meeting places of the seat of government and is fixed by law. An alternate term is political capital, but this phrase has a second and largest city of Greece Greece (English: /ˈɡriːs/ ; Greek: Ελλάδα, Elláda, IPA: /eˈlaða/ ( listen); Ancient Greek: Ἑλλάς, Hellás, IPA: /helːás/), also known as Hellas and officially the Hellenic Republic (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία, Ellīnikī́ Dīmokratía, IPA: /eliniˈci ðimokraˈtia/), is a country in southeastern Europe, situated on, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the world's oldest cities Several cities listed here each popularly claim to be "the oldest city in the world". Caveats to the validity of each claim are discussed in the "Notes" column, its recorded history Recorded history is a part of human history that has been written down or recorded by the use of language. It starts in the 4th millennium BC, with the invention of writing. The period before this is known as prehistory spans around 3,400 years.
The Greek capital has a population of 745,514 (in 2001) within its administrative limits[1] and a land area of 39 km2 (15 sq mi).[3] The urban area An urban area is characterized by higher population density and vast human features in comparison to areas surrounding it. Urban areas may be cities, towns or conurbations, but the term is not commonly extended to rural settlements such as villages and hamlets of Athens extends beyond the administrative city limits The term city limits refers to the defined boundary or border of a city. The terms town limits and village limits mean the same as city limits, but apply to towns and villages. Similarly, the term corporate limits is a legal name that refers to the boundaries of municipal corporations. The limits of a municipality may be expanded through with a population of 3,130,841 (in 2001)[1] and a land area of 412 km2 (159 sq mi).[3] According to Eurostat Eurostat is a Directorate-General of the European Commission located in Luxembourg. Its main responsibilities are to provide the European Union with statistical information at European level and to promote the harmonisation of statistical methods across the Member States of the European Union, candidate countries and EFTA countries. The, the Athens Larger Urban Zone Eurostat, the European Union's statistical agency, has created the concept of Larger Urban Zone in an effort to harmonise definitions of urbanisation in the European Union and in countries outside the European Union. These definitions were agreed between Eurostat and the National Statistics Offices of the different countries of the European Union (LUZ) is the 8th most populous LUZ in the European Union The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 member states which are located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht in 1993 upon the foundations of the European Communities. With over 500 million citizens, the EU combined generated an estimated 28% share (US$ 16.5 (the 4th most populous capital city of the EU The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 member states which are located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht in 1993 upon the foundations of the European Communities. With over 500 million citizens, the EU combined generated an estimated 28% share (US$ 16.5) with a population of 4,013,368 (in 2004).[4] A cosmopolitan metropolis, Athens is central to economic, financial, industrial, political and cultural life in Greece and it is rated as an alpha- world city A global city is a city deemed to be an important node point in the global economic system. The concept comes from geography and urban studies and rests on the idea that globalization can be understood as largely created, facilitated and enacted in strategic geographic locales according to a hierarchy of importance to the operation of the global.[5] In 2008, Athens was ranked the world's 32nd richest city by purchasing power [6] and the 25th most expensive[7] in a UBS UBS AG is a diversified global financial services company, with its main headquarters in Basel and Zürich, Switzerland. It is the world's second largest manager of private wealth assets, and is also the second-largest bank in Europe, by both market capitalisation and profitability. UBS has a major presence in the United States, with its American study.
Classical Athens The city of Athens during the classical period of Ancient Greece was a notable polis (city-state) of Attica, Greece, leading the Delian League in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta and the Peloponnesian League. Athenian democracy was established in 508 BC under Cleisthenes following the tyranny of Hippias. This system remained remarkably stable, was a powerful city-state Whereas nation-states rely on a common heritage, be it linguistic, historical, economic, etc., the city-state relies on the common interest in the function of the urban center. The urban center and its activity supplies the livelihoods of all urbanites inhabiting the city-state. A centre for the arts, learning and philosophy Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. It is distinguished from other ways of addressing fundamental questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument. The word "philosophy" comes from the, home of Plato Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy and science. Plato was originally a's Academy The Academy was founded by Plato in ca. 387 BC in Athens. Aristotle studied there for nineteen years before founding his own school at the Lyceum. The Academy persisted throughout the Hellenistic period as a skeptical school, until coming to an end after the death of Philo of Larissa in 83 BC. Although philosophers continued to teach Plato's and Aristotle Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the most's Lyceum The lyceum is a category of educational institution defined within the education system of many countries, mainly in Europe. The definition varies between countries; usually it is a type of secondary school,[8][9] it is widely referred to as the cradle The cradle of civilization is any of the possible locations for the emergence of civilization. It is usually applied to the Ancient Near Eastern Chalcolithic , especially in the Fertile Crescent (Levant and Mesopotamia), but also extended to sites in Armenia, Greece and the Persian Plateau, besides other Asian cultures situated along the large of Western civilization and the birthplace of democracy Democracy is a political form of government where governing power is derived from the people, either by direct referendum or by means of elected representatives of the people (representative democracy). The term comes from the Greek: δημοκρατία – (dēmokratía) "rule of the people", which was coined from δῆμος (dêmos) &,[10][11] largely due to the impact of its cultural and political achievements during the 5th and 4th centuries BC on the rest of the then known European continent Europe is one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus region (Specification of borders) and the Black Sea to the southeast. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean and.[12]
The heritage of the classical era is still evident in the city, represented by a number of ancient monuments An ancient monument is an early historical structure or monument worthy of preservation and study due to archaeological or heritage interest. In the United Kingdom it is a legal term, differing from the American term National Monument in being far more numerous and always man-made. As scheduled monument, it is the normal designation for legally and works of art, the most famous of all being the Parthenon The Parthenon is a temple in the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena, whom the people of Athens considered their protector. Its construction began in 447 BC and was completed in 438 BC, although decorations of the Parthenon continued until 431 BC. It is the most important surviving building of Classical Greece,, widely considered a key landmark of early Western civilization Western culture refers to cultures of European origin. The city also retains a vast variety of Roman Roman Greece is the period of Greek history following the Roman victory over the Corinthians at the Battle of Corinth in 146 BC until the reestablishment of the city of Byzantium and the naming of the city by the Emperor Constantine as the capital of the Roman Empire (as Nova Roma, later Constantinople) in 330 AD and Byzantine The Byzantine Empire was the Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Empire of the Middle Ages, centered around its capital of Constantinople, and ruled by the Byzantine emperors in direct succession to their ancient Roman predecessors. It was called the Roman Empire and also Romania (Greek: Ῥωμανία, Rhōmanía) by its inhabitants and neighbours. As monuments, as well as a smaller number of remaining Ottoman The Ottoman Empire was a regime that lasted from 1299 to 1923 monuments projecting the city's long history across the centuries. Landmarks of the modern era are also present, dating back to 1830 (the establishment of the independent Greek state), and taking in the Hellenic Parliament The Hellenic Parliament (Greek: Βουλή των Ελλήνων; transliterated Vouli ton Ellinon) is the Parliament of Greece, located in the Parliament House (Old Royal Palace), overlooking Syntagma Square in Athens, Greece (19th century) and the Athens Trilogy consisting of the National Library of Greece The National Library of Greece is situated near the center of city of Athens. It was designed by the Danish architect Theophil Freiherr von Hansen, as part of his famous Trilogy of neo-classical buildings including the Academy of Athens and the original building of the Athens University, the Athens University Ranked 177th in the world, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens , usually referred to simply as the University of Athens, is the oldest university in Southeast Europe[citation needed]and has been in continuous operation since its establishment in 1837. Today, it is the second-largest institution of higher learning in Greece (the and the Academy of Athens The Academy of Athens (Greek: Ακαδημία Αθηνών) is Greece's national academy, and the highest research establishment in the country. It was established in 1926, and operates under the supervision of the Ministry of Education. The Academy's main building is one of the major landmarks of Athens. Athens was the host city of the first modern-day Olympic Games The 1896 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the I Olympiad, was a multi-sport event celebrated in Athens, Greece, from April 6 to April 15, 1896. It was the first international Olympic Games held in the Modern era. Ancient Greece was the birthplace of the Olympic Games, consequently Athens was perceived to be an appropriate choice in 1896, and 108 years later it welcomed home the 2004 Summer Olympics The 2004 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad, was a premier international multi-sport event held in Athens, Greece from August 13 to August 29, 2004 with the motto Welcome Home. 10,625 athletes competed, some 600 more than expected, accompanied by 5,501 team officials from 201 countries. There were 301 medal.[13] More recently even, Athens hosted the annual Bilderburg meeting in 2009.
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Etymology
- See wiktionary: Athens for the name in various languages.
In Ancient Greek Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning the Archaic , Classical (c. 5th–4th centuries BC), and Hellenistic (c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD) periods of ancient Greece and the ancient world. It is predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek. Its Hellenistic phase is known as Koine (&, the name of Athens was: Ἀθῆναι /atʰɛ̑ːnaɪ/, related tο name of the goddess Athena Athena or Athene (/əˈθiːniː/; Attic: Ἀθηνᾶ, Athēnā or Ἀθηναία, Athēnaia; Epic: Ἀθηναίη, Athēnaiē; Ionic: Ἀθήνη, Athēnē; Doric: Ἀθάνα, Athana; Latin: Minerva), also referred to as Pallas Athena (Παλλάς Αθηνά; pronounced /ˈpæləs/), is the goddess of war, civilization, wisdom, strength, (Attic Attic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek, and is the standard form of the language studied in courses of "Ancient Greek". It is sometimes included in Ionic Ἀθηνᾶ [atʰɛːnȃː] and Ionic Ionic Greek was a sub-dialect of the Attic-Ionic dialectal group of Ancient Greek Ἀθήνη [a'tʰɛ:nɛ:]). The city's name was in the plural, like those of Θῆβαι (Thēbai Thebes is a city in Greece, situated to the north of the Cithaeron range, which divides Boeotia from Attica, and on the southern edge of the Boeotian plain. It played an important role in Greek myth, as the site of the stories of Cadmus, Oedipus, Dionysus and others. Archaeological excavations in and around Thebes have revealed a Mycenaean), Μυκῆναι (Mukēnai Mycenae , is an archaeological site in Greece, located about 90 km south-west of Athens, in the north-eastern Peloponnese. Argos is 11 km to the south; Corinth, 48 km to the north. From the hill on which the palace was located one can see across the Argolid to the Saronic Gulf), and Δελφοί (Delphoi Delphi is both an archaeological site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount Parnassus in the valley of Phocis. In Greek mythology, Delphi was the site of the Delphic oracle, the most important oracle in the classical Greek world, and a major site for the worship of the god Apollo after he slew the Python, a deity who lived).
In the 19th century, Ἀθῆναι (Athinai / [aˈθinɛ]) was formally re-adopted as the city's name. Since the official abandonment of Katharevousa Katharevousa , is a form of the Greek language conceived in the early 19th century as a compromise between Ancient Greek and the Modern Greek of the time, with a vocabulary largely based on ancient forms, but a much-simplified grammar. Originally, it was widely used both for literary and official purposes, though seldom in daily language. In the 20 Greek in the 1970s, Αθήνα (Athína / [aˈθina]) has become the city's official name.
History
Main article: History of Athens Athens Is one of the oldest named cities in Europe and in the world. It has been continuously inhabited for over 4000 years, becoming the leading city of Ancient Greece in the first millennium BC; its cultural achievements during the 5th century BC laid the foundations of western civilization. During the Middle Ages, the city experienced decline The Parthenon The Parthenon is a temple in the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena, whom the people of Athens considered their protector. Its construction began in 447 BC and was completed in 438 BC, although decorations of the Parthenon continued until 431 BC. It is the most important surviving building of Classical Greece, and the Odeon of Herodes Atticus during the sunset.The oldest known human presence in Athens is the Cave of Schist which has been dated to between the 11th and 7th millennium BC.[14] Athens has been continuously inhabited for at least 7000 years.[15][16] Classical Athens The city of Athens during the classical period of Ancient Greece was a notable polis (city-state) of Attica, Greece, leading the Delian League in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta and the Peloponnesian League. Athenian democracy was established in 508 BC under Cleisthenes following the tyranny of Hippias. This system remained remarkably stable, became the leading city of Ancient Greece Ancient Greece is the civilization belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. At the center of this time period is Classical Greece, which flourished during the 5th to 4th centuries BC, at first under Athenian in the 5th century BC, with its cultural achievements laying the foundations of Western civilization. It was eventually overcome by its rival city-state of Sparta.[17] By the end of Late Antiquity the city experienced decline followed by recovery in the second half of the Middle Byzantine Period (9th-10th centuries AD), and was relatively prosperous during the Crusades, benefiting from Italian trade. In 1453 it was conquered by the Ottoman Empire and entered a long period of decline.
Athens re-emerged in the 19th century as the capital of the independent Greek state. In 1896 it hosted the first modern Olympic Games. In the 1920s a number of Greek refugees, expelled from Asia Minor after the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922), swelled Athens' population; nevertheless it was most particularly following World War II, and from the 1950s and 1960s, that the population of the city exploded, and Athens experienced a gradual expansion in all directions. In the 1980s it became evident that smog from factories and an ever increasing fleet of automobiles, as well as a lack of adequate free space due to overcongestion, had evolved into the city's most important challenge. A series of anti-pollution measures taken by the city's authorities in the 1990s, combined with a substantial improvement of the city's infrastructure (including the Attiki Odos motorway, the expansion of the Athens Metro, and the new Athens International Airport), considerably alleviated pollution and transformed Athens into a much more functional city.
Geography
View of the Attica Basin from space. Courtesy: NASA.Athens sprawls across the central plain of Attica that is often referred to as the Attica or Athens Basin. The basin is bound by four large mountains; Mount Aegaleo to the west, Mount Parnitha to the north, Mount Penteli to the northeast and Mount Hymettus to the east of the Athens Metropolitan Area and also the extension of the Athens basin is the Thriasian plain west of the capital. The Saronic Gulf lies in the southwest. Mount Parnitha is the tallest of the four mountains (1,413 m (4,636 ft))[18] and it has been declared a national park.
Athens is built around a number of hills. Lycabettus is one of the tallest hills of the city proper and allows the entire Attica Basin to be seen. The geomorphology of Athens is deemed to be one of the most complex in the world due to its mountains and causes a temperature inversion phenomenon which, along with the failure of the Greek Government to control industrial pollution, is responsible for the air pollution problems the city has recently faced.[16][19] (Los Angeles and Mexico City also suffer with similar geomorphology inversion problems).[16] Greece is said to look like a hand with many peninsulas.
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Wed, 08 Sep 2010 16:18:32 GMT+00:00
Cleveland Daily Banner 11 from 4 to 7 pm at Athens Regional Park pavilion. There will be a covered dinner at 5 pm Brings photos to swap and share. For more informaation contact ...
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Here is the gang in front of the Colliseum in Rome Note they are all wearing their costumes identical shirts which help identify family members in a crowd Our hotel in Athens
Sat, 06 Feb 2010 03:11:25 PST
Get Outta Town Athens Greece: Joe goes to Athens with a goal in mind ^ to be trained to run the fastest 400 m of his life!. amazon.com.
Josh D. Weiss
Wed, 01 Sep 2010 03:59:38 GM
More photos from around . Athens. shot last week. Riding on the bus.
