Greece Geography, Climate & Nature

Greece is mostly mountain. The mainland is a peninsula at the southern tip of the Balkans whose ranges run from the Pindus in the north-west down through the centre, and whose coastline is so folded with gulfs and headlands that few inland places are far from the sea. The highest point is Mount Olympus at 2,918 metres; the Vikos Gorge in Epirus falls more than 1,100 metres and is, in proportion to its width, the deepest canyon in the world. The plain of Thessaly, where the rock pillars of Meteora stand, is one of the few large flat areas.

The islands are the country's other half. How many there are depends on what counts as one -- estimates run from about 1,200 to 6,000, and the national tourism organisation's own figure is 6,000 with 227 inhabited. The largest are Crete, Euboea, Lesvos, Rhodes, Chios, Kefalonia and Corfu; the smaller ones cluster into groups, the Cyclades and Dodecanese among them, each with its own weather, stone and building tradition.

This geography decided the history. Mountains kept regions apart and made the sea the road, so Greek life has always faced the coast; Piraeus, the port of Athens, was Europe's busiest passenger port in 2014. It also decides a trip: distances on a map understate the time a mountain road or a ferry crossing takes, and the summer north winds that sweep the Aegean are part of the geography as much as the weather.

The coasts and islands have a Mediterranean climate: hot, dry summers and mild, wet winters in which any snow at low altitude is gone within days, especially on south-facing slopes. The mountains of the north and centre are another country, with real winters and skiing; the plains of Thessaly and Central Macedonia are hotter in summer and colder in winter than the coast.

Two things matter more than the averages. The first is heat: a National Observatory of Athens station at Gytheio in the Peloponnese recorded 46.4 °C, the highest reading in its network since records began in 2006, and summer afternoons across the south are for shade rather than sites. The second is wind. The etesians, or meltemia, are strong, dry north winds that dominate the Aegean in summer; they are fiercest in the afternoon and usually drop at night, but can blow for days without a break. They cool the islands and make the summer bearable, and they also make crossings rough and small-boat plans unreliable.

The practical reading is in Best Destinations by Month: mainland and mountains in spring and autumn, islands in early summer or September, cities in winter.

Greece sits where three continents' species meet, and its mountains, islands and wetlands hold more variety than its size suggests. About 450 bird species have been recorded. The Dadia Forest in the far north-east, near the Turkish border, is the country's great raptor ground: four species of vulture nest there among thirty-six kinds of diurnal bird of prey, a concentration with few equals in Europe.

The flora carries the traces of a time when Greece was joined to western Anatolia, so that many plants are shared with Turkey; the Cretan date palm, confined to a few stands in southern Greece, Crete and Turkey, is the emblem of that old connection. The island floras are the richest, each archipelago with its own endemics on its own limestone.

No species-level survey was consulted for this page beyond the sources named in the data file; the figures are indicative, not a checklist.

The animal most worth knowing about is the one least often seen. The Mediterranean monk seal survives in Greek waters in the low hundreds -- roughly 250 to 300 animals -- with its largest concentration on the uninhabited island of Gyaros in the Cyclades and a national marine park around Alonissos and the Northern Sporades. It rests in sea caves and is easily disturbed; boats that keep their distance are the difference.

Loggerhead turtles nest on the beaches of Laganas Bay on Zakynthos, the first place in the Mediterranean made a national park for sea turtles, and Sekania beach there ranks among the densest loggerhead nesting sites in the world. Nesting is a summer affair, and the park's rules on the beaches exist for it.

The mountains of the north keep large mammals that the rest of southern Europe has mostly lost, and the wetlands of Thrace and the Dadia forest are the place for birds of prey, vultures included. Wildlife here is a matter of going to the right corner at the right season rather than expecting it on the way.