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Even in the fields of sculpture and architecture, only a fragment of the total output of Greek artists survives. For the Christians of the 4th and 5th centuries, smashing a pagan idol was an act of piety. One of the sad facts of ancient history is that when marble is burned, lime is produced, and that was also the fate of the great bulk of Greek marble statuary during the Middle Ages. Likewise, the acute shortage of metal during the Middle Ages led to the majority of Greek bronze statues being melted down. Those statues which had survived did so primarily because they had been buried and forgotten, or as in the case of bronzes having been lost at sea.

The greatest works of the Classical period, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia and the Statue of Athena Parthenos (both executed by Phidias or under his direction), are lost, although smaller copies and good descriptions of both still exist. Their size and magnificence made them a target for imperial acquisition in the Byzantine period, and both were removed to Constantinople where they were later destroyed in fires.

Greek music is a mixture of influences from its own indigenous culture with Western and Middle Eastern cultures. Turkish and Ottoman elements can be most clearly heard in the traditional songs, dhimotiká, as well as the modern bluesy rembétika music.

The Muslim minority, concentrated in Thrace, was given legal status by provisions of the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 and is Greece's only officially recognized religious minority.

Greece is located at the junction of three continents: Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece's foreign policy, despite its joining NATO in 1952 and its accession to the European Community in 1981, has remained focused on the Balkans and the eastern Mediterranean region.

Militarily Greece itself declined to the point that the Romans conquered the land (168 BC onwards), though Greek culture would in turn conquer Roman life. Greece became a province of the Roman Empire, but Greek culture would continue to dominate the eastern Mediterranean and when the Empire finally split in two the Eastern or Byzantine Empire, centred on Constantinople, would remain Greek in nature, as well as encompassing Greece itself. From the 4th century to the 15th century the Eastern Roman Empire survived eleven centuries of attacks from the west and east until Constantinople fell on May 29, 1453 to the Ottoman Empire. Greece had gradually been conquered by the Ottomans during the 15th century.

The majority of Greeks (95 to 98%) have at least nominal membership of the Eastern Orthodox Church, although religious observance has declined in recent years. Greek Muslims make up about 1.3% of the population, and live mainly in Thrace. Greece has some Roman Catholics: mainly in the Cyclades islands of Syros, Paros and Naxos; some Protestants and some Jews, mainly in Thessaloniki. Some groups in Greece have started an attempt to reconstruct Hellênismos, the old Greek pagan religion. See also: Greek Orthodox Church.

About 80% of Greece consists of mountains or hills. Dry and rocky conditions prevail in much of the country is ; only 28% of the land classes as arable. Western Greece contains lakes and wetlands. Pindus, the central mountain range, has an average elevation of 2,650 m. Mount Olympus forms the highest point in Greece at 2,911 m above sea level.

The population of Modern Greece includes small minorities of Muslims, Roman Catholics, Protestants, and Jews. A minute number of Greeks are practitioners of Hellênismos, which is a modern attempt to reconstruct the pagan religion of ancient Greece.

After the 1980s, Cretan folk music steadily declined in mainstream popularity, eventually retreating almost entirely to the underground. Prominent performers include Dimitrios Vakakis, Nectarios Samolis, George Lekakis, telios Bikakis, Georgios Tsantakis, Nikos Eliakis, Michalis Tzouganakis and Elias Horeftakis