Greece,officially the Hellenic Republic is a country in south-eastern Europe, situated on the southern end of the Balkan peninsula. It is bordered by Bulgaria, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Albania to the north and by Turkey to the east.

Greece is a developed country, a member of the European Union since 1981 and a member of the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union since 2001. Athens, Thessaloniki, Piraeus and Patras are the country's major cities.

Geography

Greece consists of a mountainous and craggy mainland jutting out into the sea at the southern end of the Balkans. The Peloponnesus peninsula (separated from the mainland by the canal of the Isthmus of Corinth); and numerous islands (around 3,000), including Crete, Euboea, Lesbos, Chios, the Dodecanese and the Cycladic groups of the Aegean Sea as well as the Ionian Sea islands. Greece has the 10th longest coastline in the world with over 15,000 kilometres; its land boundary is 1,160 kilometres (721 mi).

Economy

Even if the economy of Greece has improved in recent years due to the tight policy before and after EU’s single currency and the preparation for the Olympic Games of 2004, Greece is one of the poorest countries of the European Union with the second-to-lowest average income.

It is an agricultural country (with agricultural products such as wheat, corn, barley, sugar beets, olives, tomatoes, tobacco, potatoes, beef, dairy products and wine) with 20 % of the workforce employed in this sector. 59 % of the workforce is employed in the sector of services and the 21 % in the sector of industry (food and tobacco processing, textiles, chemicals, metal products, mining and petroleum) and construction. Even if Greece is an agricultural country, the agricultural contribution to the economy is only of 15 %.
Greece exports total 12.5 billion dollars of manufactured goods, fuels, food and beverages to countries such as Germany, Italy, UK, France and the US.

Culture

Greek culture evolved over thousands of years, with its beginnings in the Mycenean and Minoan Civilizations, continuing into Classical Greece, the birth of the Hellenistic era and through the influence of the Roman Empire and its Greek Eastern successor the Byzantine Empire.

Greece is often known as the cradle of Western civilisation.

National holiday: Independence Day, 25 March (1821). 

Music and dancing has always been important to the Greek people. Many traditions are preserved in the Greece villages, especially in the more isolated ones. In ancient times, dance, song, and music were all integral parts of the theater.