Interesting facts about greece

Interesting Facts About Greece

By: http://ohfact.com/

Greece (Greek: Ελλάδα, Elláda [eˈlaða]), officially the Hellenic

Republic(Greek: Ελληνική Δημοκρατία Ellīnikī ́Dīmokratía [eliniˈci

ðimokraˈti.a]), historically also known

as Hellas (Ancient Greek: Ἑλλάς Hellás[ˈhɛləs]),is a country

in southeastern Europe. Greece's population is approximately 10.955

million as of 2015. Athens is the nation's capital and largest city,

followed by Thessaloniki.

Read More At: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greece

Interesting Facts About Greece

With an area of 50,949 square miles (131,958 square kilometers),

Greece is roughly the size of Alabama. The population of Greece is

more than 10 million people.—comparatively, the population of

Alabama is around 4.5 million.

Approximately 16.5 million tourists visit Greece each year, more

than the country’s entire population. Tourism constitutes nearly

16% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

No one in Greece can choose to not vote. Voting is required by

law for every citizen who is 18 or older.

About 7% of all the marble produced in the world comes from

Greece.

Greece has more international airports than most countries

because so many foreign tourists want to visit.

The world’s third leading producer of olives, the Greeks have

cultivated olive trees since ancient times. Some olive trees

planted in the thirteenth century are still producing olives.

According to Greek mythology, Athena and Poseidon agreed that

whoever gave the city the best gift would become guardian over

the city. Though Poseidon gave the gift of water, Athena’s gift of

an olive tree was deemed by the other gods to be more valuable.

Greece has zero navigable rivers because of

the mountainous terrain. Nearly 80% of Greece is mountainous.

Approximately 98% of the people in Greece are ethnic Greeks.

Turks form the largest minority group. Other minorities are

Albanians, Macedonians, Bulgarians, Armenians, and gypsies.

About 12 million people around the world speak Greek. They live

mostly in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, the United States,

among other countries.

Thousands of English words come from the Greek language,

sometimes via the Roman adaptation into Latin and then to

English. Common English words from Greek include “academy,”

“apology,” “marathon,” “siren,” “alphabet,” and “typhoon.”

In the 1950s, only about 30% of Greek adults could read and

write. Now, the literacy rate is more than 95%.

Over 40% of the population lives in the capital Athens (Athina in

Greek). Since becoming the capital of modern Greece, its

population has risen from 10,000 in 1834 to 3.6 million in 2001.

An old Greek legend says that when God created the world, he

sifted all the soil onto the earth through a strainer. After every

country had good soil, he tossed the stones left in the strainer

over his shoulder and created Greece.

Greece has more than 2,000 islands, of which approximately 170

are populated. Greece’s largest island is Crete (3,189 sq. miles)

(8,260 sq. km.).

Read More At:

http://ohfact.com/interesting-facts-about-greece/