Skip navigation

You are here: Home » Destinations » Greece » Sea Tourism

Greece

Sea Tourism

The wealth and diversity of the Greek seas, the endless kilometres of the Greek coasts and the thousands of Greek islands, the protected sea areas covering thousands of square kilometres, the mild climate, the high percentage of sunshine and its interesting and varying landscape make Greece the ideal destination for the development of sea tourism activities. This advantage is strengthened both by thousands of years of marine tradition and by conditions favourable for sea travelling: the Greek seas are considered safe, distances between coasts are small, while conditions related to wind strength, ambient and sea temperatures are equally favourable.
In Greece sea tourism started in the ‘60s and since then has been developing at a fast pace, especially in recent years. Cruise ships under Greek flag organising short or longer cruises to Greek ports and ports of other countries of the Eastern Mediterranean amount to more than 160,000 GRT units and have a total capacity of over 10,000 passengers. Greek ports, however, are also visited by cruise ships under foreign flags, which annually bring more than 500,000 passengers into the country by sea.

Regions

All regions

General information

Official name
Hellenic Republic

Geographic Location
Southern tip of the Balkan Peninsula in South East Europe

Capital and largest city
Athens ( 3.3 million )

Area
131 940 sq km

Population
10.7 Million

Time Zone
GMT + 2

Curency
Euro

Official language
Greek

Neighbouring countries
Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Turkey

Highest point
Mount Olympus (2,918 meters)

Lowest point
Mediterranean Sea (0 meters)

Longest rivers
Evros and Axios

Landing place
Athens, Thessaloniky, Rhodes, Corfu

Electricity
220 volts, 50 Hz

Ethnic groups
Greek 98%, other 2%

Religion
The Greek population is composed of a 97% of Christian Orthodox. The rest of the population is Muslim, Roman Catholic and Jewish.