Greece is a country situated on the southern end of the Balkan Peninsula. It is bordered by Albania, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and Bulgaria to the north, and by Turkey to the east. The Aegean Sea lies to the east and south of mainland Greece, while the Ionian Sea lies to the west. Both parts of the eastern Mediterranean basin feature a vast number of islands.
Greece lies at the juncture of Europe, Asia, and Africa. It is heir to the heritages of classical Greece, the Byzantine Empire, and nearly four centuries of Ottoman rule. Regarded as the cradle of western civilization and being the birthplace of democracy, Western philosophy, the Olympic Games, western literature, political science, major scientific principles and drama (including both tragedy and comedy), Greece has a particularly long and eventful history and a cultural heritage which has been considerably influential in Northern Africa and the Middle East and fundamentally formative for the culture of Europe and what is now called the West.
Modern Greece is a developed country, a member of the European Union since 1981, a member of the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union since 2001, NATO since 1951, the OECD since 1960, the WEU since 1995, and the ESA since 2005. Athens is the capital; Thessaloniki, Patras, Heraklion, Volos and Larissa are some of the country's other major cities.