Geographical Map Greece Sources of geographical map greece resources from the Web

Greece, as a member of the European Union, strived to reduce its budget deficit and inflation rate in order to meet the prerequisites for the Economic and Monetary Union. Although growth remained above the convergence program guidelines, high budget deficits and deficient infrastructure continued to dampen the economy's long-term potential growth rate.

Despite the country's numerically small and ill-equipped armed forces, Greece made a decisive contribution to the Allied efforts in World War II. At the start of the war Greece sided with the Allies and refused to give in to Italian demands. Italy invaded Greece on 28 October 1940, but Greek troops repelled the invaders after a bitter struggle. This marked the first Allied victory in the war. Hitler then reluctantly stepped in, primarily to secure his strategic southern flank: troops from Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria and Italy successfully invaded Greece, overcoming Greek, British, Australian and New Zealand units.

Aristotle, by contrast, placed much more value on knowledge gained from the senses, and would correspondingly better earn the modern label of empiricist. Thus Aristotle set the stage for what would eventually develop into the scientific method centuries later. The works of Aristotle that still exist today appear in treatise form, mostly unpublished by their author. The most important include Physics, Metaphysics, (Nicomachean) Ethics, Politics, De Anima (On the Soul), Poetics, and many others. See the article on Aristotle for more discussion.

Thales of Miletus is regarded by many as the father of science; he was the first Greek philosopher to seek to explain the physical world in terms of natural rather than supernatural causes. Pythagoras was a Greek mathematician who is known as the "father of numbers"; it is believed that he had the pioneering insight into the numerical ratios that determine the musical scale, and the Pythagorean theorem is commonly attributed to him. Diophantus of Alexandria is sometimes called the "father of algebra", and much of modern geometry is based on the work of Euclid. Eratosthenes was one of the first scientific geographers, calculating the circumference of the earth and making the first maps based on scientific principles. Hipparchus is considered to be the greatest astronomical observer of the ancient world, and was probably the first to develop an accurate method of predicting solar eclipses. Aristarchus was the first known astronomer to propose a heliocentric model of the solar system, though the geocentric model of Ptolemy was more commonly accepted until the sixteenth century. Ptolemy also contributed much to cartography and to the science of optics. Archimedes was the first to calculate the value of p and the first to calculate a geometric series; he also was the first mathematical physicist, discovered the law of buoyancy, and invented the irrigation device known as Archimedes' screw.

Greece is located in southeastern Europe on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula. The Greek mainland is bounded on the north by Bulgaria, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Albania; on the east by the Aegean Sea and Turkey; and on the west and south by the Ionian and Mediterranean Seas. The country consists of a large mainland; the Peloponnesos, a peninsula connected to the mainland by the Isthmus of Corinth; and more than 1,400 islands, including Crete, Rhodes, Corfu, and the Dodecanese and Cycladic groups. Greece has more than 14,880 kilometers (9,300 mi.) of coastline and a land boundary of 1,160 kilometers (726 mi.).

Greek folk music is found all throughout Greece, as well as among communities in countries like the United States, Canada and Australia. The island of Cyprus and several regions of Turkey are or have recently been home to long-standing communities of ethnic Greeks with their own unique styles of music

Recent economic performance has been satisfying. However the challenge for policymakers now is to avoid an economic slump after the enthusiasm of the Games has gone and the EU farm subsidies get cut in 2006.

In reality, there was no sharp transition from one period to another. Forms of art developed at different speeds in different parts of the Greek world, and as in any age some artists worked in more innovative styles than others. Strong local traditions, conservative in character, and the requirements of local cults, enable historians to locate the origins even of displaced works of art.

It is sometimes difficult to determine which ideas Pythagoras taught originally, as opposed to the ideas his followers later added. While he clearly attached great importance to geometry, classical Greek writers tended to cite Thales as the great pioneer of this science rather than Pythagoras. The later tradition of Pythagoras as the inventor of mathematics stems largely from the Roman period.

The history of philosophy in the west begins with the Greeks, and particularly with a group of philosophers commonly called the pre-Socratics. This is not to deny the occurrence of other pre-philosophical rumblings in Egyptian, Semitic and Babylonian cultures. Certainly great thinkers and writers existed in each of these cultures, and we have evidence that some of the earliest Greek philosophers may have had contact with at least some of the products of Egyptian and Babylonian thought. However, the early Greek thinkers add at least one element which differentiates their thought from all those who came before them. For the first time in history, we discover in their writings something more than dogmatic assertions about the ordering of the world -- we find reasoned arguments for various beliefs about the world.

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.

Some of the best known Hellenistic sculptures are the Winged Victory of Samothrace (2nd or 1st century BC), the statue of Aphrodite from the island of Melos known as the Venus de Milo (mid 2nd century BC), the Dying Gaul (about 230 BC), and the monumental group Laocoön and his Sons (late 1st century BC). All these statues depict Classical themes, but their treatment is far more sensuous and emotional than the austere taste of the Classical period would have allowed or its technical skills permitted.

In 1988, a new law provided the legal framework for the establishment of private radio stations and, in 1989, private TV stations. According to the law, supervision of radio and television is exercised by the National Radio and Television Council. In practice, however, official licensing has been delayed for many years. Because of this, there has been a proliferation of private radio and TV stations, as well as European satellite channels, including Euronews. More than 1,000 radio stations were operating before March 2002, when the government implemented plans to reallocate TV frequencies and issue licenses as authorized by the 1993 Media Law, effectively reducing this number.