Athens travel guide

Athens (Greek: Αθήνα/Athina a'θina, Katharevousa: Αθήναι/Athinai a'θinɛ), the capital and largest city in Greece, dominates the Attica periphery: as one of the world's oldest cities, its recorded history spans at least 3,000 years. The Greek capital has a population of 745,514 (in 2001) within its administrative limits. The urban area of Athens extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3.37 million (in 2005). The city proper has a land area of while the urban area of Athens spans The Athens Larger Urban Zone (LUZ) is the 8th most populated LUZ in the European Union with an estimated population of 3.89 million (in 2001). A bustling and cosmopolitan metropolis, Athens is central to economic, financial, industrial, political and cultural life in Greece. It is rapidly becoming a leading business centre in the European Union.
Ancient Athens was a powerful city-state. A center for the arts, learning and philosophy, home of Plato's Akademia and Aristotle's Lyceum, Athens was also the birthplace of Socrates, Pericles, Sophocles, and its many other prominent philosophers, writers and politicians of the ancient world. It is widely referred to as the cradle of Western Civilization, and the birthplace of democracy, largely due to the impact of its cultural and political achievements during the 5th and 4th centuries BC on the rest of the then known European continent. (...)