Greece is located in Southeast Europe, on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula. Greece shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the east. It has more than 2,000 islands, of which about 170 are inhabited; some of the easternmost Aegean islands lie just a few miles off the Turkish coast. 

The country’s capital is Athens, which expanded rapidly in the second half of the 20th century. Attikí (ancient Greek: Attica), the area around the capital, is now home to about one-third of the country’s entire population.