Athens City Guide | Tourism in Greece

Athens  Greek is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning around 3,400 years and the earliest human presence around 11th–7th millennium BC,. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state that emerged in conjunction with the seagoing development of the port of Piraeus. A centre for the arts, learning and philosophy, home of Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum, it is widely referred to as the cradle of Western civilization and the birthplace of democracy, 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. Today a cosmopolitan metropolis, modern Athens is central to economic, financial, industrial, political and cultural life in Greece. In 2012, Athens was ranked the world's 39th richest city by purchasing power and the 77th most expensive in a UBS study.
Athens is recognised as a global city because of its geo-strategic location and its importance in finance, commerce, media, entertainment, arts, international trade, culture, education and tourism. It is one of the biggest economic centres in southeastern Europe, with a large financial sector and features the largest passenger port in Europe and the third largest in the world.The municipality (City) of Athens has a population of 664,046 (in 2011, 796,442 in 2004)within its administrative limits and a land area of 39 km2 (15 sq mi).[15] The urban area of Athens (Greater Athens and Greater Piraeus) extends beyond its administrative municipal city limits, with a population of 3,074,160 (in 2011) over an area of 412 km2 (159 sq mi).  According to Eurostat in 2004, the Athens Larger Urban Zone (LUZ) was the 7th most populous LUZ in the European Union (the 5th most populous capital city of the EU), with a population of 4,013,368. Athens is also the southernmost capital on the European mainland.
The heritage of the classical era is still evident in the city, represented by ancient monuments and works of art, the most famous of all being the Parthenon, considered a key landmark of early Western civilization. The city also retains Roman and Byzantine monuments, as well as a smaller number of Ottoman monuments.
Athens is home to two UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the Acropolis of Athens and the medieval Daphni Monastery. Landmarks of the modern era, dating back to the establishment of Athens as the capital of the independent Greek state in 1834, include the Hellenic Parliament (19th century) and the Athens Trilogy, consisting of the National Library of Greece, the Athens University and the Academy of Athens. Athens was the host city of the first modern-day Olympic Games in 1896, and 108 years later it welcomed home the 2004 Summer Olympics.Athens is home to the National Archeological Museum, featuring the world's largest collection of ancient Greek antiquities, as well as the new Acropolis Museum.
In Ancient Greek Athens' name was Ἀθῆναι (Athēnai [atʰɛ̂ːnai]) in plural. However, in earlier Greek, such as Homeric Greek, the name was in the singular form, as Ἀθήνη (Athēnē)[18] and was then rendered in the plural, like those of Θῆβαι (Thēbai) and Μυκῆναι (Μukēnai). The root of the word is probably not of Greek or Indo-European origin, and is a possible remnant of the Pre-Greek substrate of Attica,[19] as with the name of the goddess Athena (Attic Ἀθηνᾶ Athēnā, Ionic Ἀθήνη Athēnē and Doric Ἀθάνα Athānā), who was always related to the city of Athens. During the medieval period the name of the city was rendered once again in the singular as Ἀθήνα. However, because of the conservatism of the written language, Ἀθῆναι [aˈθine] remained the official name of the city until the abandonment of Katharevousa in the 1970s, when Ἀθήνα became the official name.

Previously, there had been other etymologies by scholars of the 19th century. Lobeck proposed as the root of the name the word ἄθος (athos) or ἄνθος (anthos) meaning flower, to denote Athens as the flowering city. On the other hand, Döderlein proposed the stem of the verb θάω, stem θη- (thaō, stem thē-, "to suck") to denote Athens as having fertile soil.[20]

An etiological myth explaining how Athens has acquired this name was well known among ancient Athenians and even became the theme of the sculpture on the West pediment of the Parthenon. The goddess Athena and the god Poseidon had many disagreements and battles between them, and one of these was a race to be the Patron God of the city. In an attempt to compel the people, Poseidon created a salt water spring by striking the ground with his trident, symbolizing naval power. However, when 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 city is sometimes referred in Greek as "τὸ κλεινὸν ἄστυ", which means in English the glorious city, or simply
Acropolis of Athens
The oldest known human presence in Athens is the Cave of Schist, which has been dated to between the 11th and 7th millennium BC. Athens has been continuously inhabited for at least 7000 years. By 1400 BC the settlement had become an important centre of the Mycenaean civilization and the Acropolis was the site of a major Mycenaean fortress, whose remains can be recognised from sections of the characteristic Cyclopean walls. Unlike other Mycenaean centers, such as Mycenae and Pylos, it is not known whether Athens suffered destruction in about 1200 BC, an event often attributed to a Dorian invasion, and the Athenians always maintained that they were "pure" Ionians with no Dorian element. However, Athens, like many other Bronze Age settlements, went into economic decline for around 150 years afterwards.
Statue of Theseus. Theseus was responsible, according to the myth, for the synoikismos ("dwelling together")—the political unification of Attica under Athens.
Iron Age burials, in the Kerameikos and other locations, are often richly provided for and demonstrate that from 900 BC onwards Athens was one of the leading centres of trade and prosperity in the region.[25] The leading position of Athens may well have resulted from its central location in the Greek world, its secure stronghold on the Acropolis and its access to the sea, which gave it a natural advantage over inland rivals such as Thebes and Sparta.
Delian League, under the leadership of Athens before the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC
The Roman-era Philopappos Monument
By the 6th century BC, widespread social unrest led to the reforms of Solon. These would pave the way for the eventual introduction of democracy by Cleisthenes in 508 BC. Athens had by this time become a significant naval power with a large fleet, and helped the rebellion of the Ionian cities against Persian rule. In the ensuing Greco-Persian Wars Athens, together with Sparta, led the coalition of Greek states that would eventually repel the Persians, defeating them decisively at Marathon in 490 BC, and crucially at Salamis in 480 BC. However, this did not prevent Athens from being captured and sacked twice by the Persians within one year, after a heroic resistance at Thermopylae by Spartans and other Greeks led by King Leonidas, after both Boeotia and Attica fell to the Persians.

The decades that followed became known as the Golden Age of Athenian democracy, during which time Athens became the leading city of Ancient Greece, with its cultural achievements laying the foundations of Western civilization. The playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides flourished in Athens during this time, as did the historians Herodotus and Thucydides, the physician Hippocrates, and the philosopher Socrates. Guided by Pericles, who promoted the arts and fostered democracy, Athens embarked on an ambitious building program that saw the construction of the Acropolis of Athens (including the Parthenon), as well as empire-building via the Delian League. Originally intended as an association of Greek city-states to continue the fight against the Persians, the league soon turned into a vehicle for Athens's own imperial ambitions. The resulting tensions brought about the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), in which Athens was defeated by its rival Sparta.
By the mid-4th century BC, the northern Greek kingdom of Macedon was becoming dominant in Athenian affairs. In 338 BC the armies of Philip II defeated an alliance of some of the Greek city-states including Athens and Thebes at the Battle of Chaeronea, effectively ending Athenian independence. Later, under Rome, Athens was given the status of a free city because of its widely admired schools. The Roman emperor Hadrian, in the 2nd century AD, constructed a library, a gymnasium, an aqueduct which is still in use, several temples and sanctuaries, a bridge and financed the completion of the Temple of Olympian Zeus.
By the end of Late Antiquity, the city experienced decline followed by recovery in the second half of the Middle Byzantine Period, in the 9th to 10th centuries AD, and was relatively prosperous during the Crusades, benefiting from Italian trade. After the Fourth Crusade the Duchy of Athens was established. In 1458 it was conquered by the Ottoman Empire and entered a long period of decline.