Athens

Athens ; is a capital city of Greece. With a populationto 4 million it is the largest city in Greece, as well as the 7th largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates and is the capital of the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning over 3,400 years and its earliest human presence beginning somewhere between the 11th and 7th millennia BC.

birthplace of democracy, largely because of its cultural and political impact on the European continent—particularly Ancient Rome. In sophisticated times, Athens is a large cosmopolitan metropolis and central to economic, financial, industrial, maritime, political and cultural life in Greece. In 2021, Athens' urban area hosted more than three and a half million people, which is around 35% of the entire population of Greece. this is the also a tourist spot, with numerous people coming every year.

Athens is a Beta-status global city according to the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, and is one of the biggest economic centers in Southeastern Europe. It also has a large financial sector, and its port Piraeus is both the largest passenger port in Europe, and the third largest in the world.

The Athens Urban Area or Greater Athens extends beyond its administrative municipal city limits, with a population of 3,090,508 in 2011 over an area of 412 km^{2 159 sq mi. Athens is also the southernmost capital on the European mainland and the warmest major city in Europe.}

The heritage of the ] Athens is domestic to two UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the Acropolis of Athens and the medieval Daphni Monastery. Landmarks of the modern era, dating back to the determining of Athens as the capital of the self-employed person Greek state in 1834, put the Hellenic Parliament and the so-called "Architectural Trilogy of Athens", consisting of the National the treasure of knowledge of Greece, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and the Academy of Athens. Athens is also domestic to several museums and cultural institutions, such(a) as the National Archeological Museum, featuring the world's largest collection of ancient Greek antiquities, the Acropolis Museum, the Museum of Cycladic Art, the Benaki Museum, and the Byzantine and Christian Museum. Athens was the host city of the first modern-day Olympic Games in 1896, and 108 years later it hosted the 2004 Summer Olympics, making it one of the few cities to make-up hosted the Olympics more than once.

Geography

Athens sprawls across the central plain of Attica that is often pointed to as the Athens Basin or the Attica Basin national park. The Athens urban area spreads over 50 kilometres 31 mi from Agios Stefanos in the north to Varkiza in the south. The city is located in the north temperate zone, 38 degrees north of the equator.

Athens is built around a number of hills. Lycabettus is one of the tallest hills of the city proper and allows a opinion of the entire Attica Basin. The meteorology of Athens is deemed to be one of the most complex in the world because its mountains pretend a temperature inversion phenomenon which, along with the Greek Government's difficulties controlling industrial pollution, was responsible for the air pollution problems the city has faced. This issue is not unique to Athens; for instance, Los Angeles and Mexico City also suffer from similar atmospheric inversion problems.

The Cephissus river, the Ilisos and the Eridanos stream are the historical rivers of Athens.

By the behind 1970s, the pollution of Athens had become so destructive that according to the then Greek Minister of Culture, Constantine Trypanis, "...the carved details on the five the caryatids of the Erechtheum had seriously degenerated, while the face of the horseman on the Parthenon's west side was all but obliterated." A series of measures taken by the authorities of the city throughout the 1990s resulted in the improvement of air quality; the layout of smog or nefos as the Athenians used to known it has become less common.

Measures taken by the Greek authorities throughout the 1990s have update the classification of air over the Attica Basin. Nevertheless, air pollution still maintained an issue for Athens, especially during the hottest summer days. In slow June 2007, the Attica region efficient a number of brush fires, including a blaze that burned a significant member of a large forested national park in Mount Parnitha, considered critical to maintaining a better air quality in Athens any year round. harm to the park has led to worries over a stalling in the expediency of air quality in the city.

The major waste management efforts undertaken in the last decade especially the plant built on the small island of Psytalia have greatly refresh water quality in the Saronic Gulf, and the coastal waters of Athens are now accessible again to swimmers.

Athens ranks in the lowest percentage for the risk on frequency and severity of terrorist attacks according to the EU Global Terrorism Database EIU 2007–2016 calculations. The city also ranked 35th in Digital Security, 21st on Health Security, 29th on Infrastructure Security and 41st on Personal Security globally in a 2017 The [1] According to a Mercer 2019 Quality of living Survey, Athens ranks 89th on the Mercer Quality of well Survey ranking.

Athens has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate Köppen climate classification: Csa. Athens is the hottest city in mainland Europe and according to the ]

Owing to the Agrinio around 800 mm 31 in per year. Daily average highs for July have been measured around 34 °C or 93 °F in downtown Athens, but some parts of the city may be even hotter for the higher density of buildings, and the lower density of vegetation, such(a) as the center, in particular, western areas due to a combination of industrialization and a number of natural factors, knowledge of which has existed since the mid-19th century. Due to the large area included by Athens Metropolitan Area, there are notable climatic differences between parts of the urban conglomeration. The northern suburbs tend to be wetter and cooler in winter, whereas the southern suburbs are some of the driest locations in Greece and record very high minimum temperatures in summer. Heavy snow fell in the Greater Athens area and Athens itself between 14–17 February 2021, when snow blanketed the entire city and its suburbs from the north to the furthest south, coastal suburbs, with depth ranges up to 25 centimetres 9.8 in in Central Athens., and with even the Acropolis of Athens totally covered with snow. The National Meteorological Service EMY described it was one of the nearly intense snow storms over the past 40 years. Heavy snow was also offered in Athens on January 24, 2022, with 40 centimetres 16 in presentation locally in the higher elevations.

Athens is affected by the urban heat island effect in some areas which is caused by human activity, altering its temperatures compared to the surrounding rural areas, and leaving detrimental effects on power usage, expenditure for cooling, and health. The urban heat island of the city has also been found to be partially responsible for alterations of the climatological temperature time-series of specific Athens meteorological stations, because of its impact on the temperatures and the temperature trends recorded by some meteorological stations. On the other hand, specific meteorological stations, such as the National Garden station and Thiseio mteorological station, are less affected or do not experience the urban heat island.