Are you ready for fun and interesting facts about Athens?
We all know that Athens is the capital of Greece. But did you know what are some cool facts about the city?
And Who doesn’t love a good list? Lists offer us a simple way to break down large amounts of data into bite-sized chunks. We see them everywhere.
Below you’ll find a list of fun facts about Athens in Greece. And they are a good addition to our complete list of interesting facts about Greece..
20 Interesting Facts About Athens
The Athens metro covers over 135 kilometers.
ATHENS has more Theatrical Stages than any other Capital City in the world. They have found 148 stages.
IN Downtown Athens The Streets were paved with Marble until the 1990s.
The Athens Riviera is one reality unknown, but one of the best places to visit in Europe.
Athens is the gateway to visiting a Greek Island.
The national archaeological museum has some best historical sites in Greece.
Like the Kore and Kouros, and the statue of Zeus or Poseidon.
And there are over 6,000 islands in Greece. Many of which have ancient ruins.
The Acropolis is where you’ll find Athens’ most famous landmarks.
The Roman Agora remains, dating back to the roman period in Athens.
These include the Parthenon, an ancient Greek temple dedicated to Athena.
And the Agora, an open-air marketplace where many shops and businesses were once located.
The Acropolis Museum was founded in 1865.
And the Acropolis Museum houses find dating back to the first excavations at the Acropolis.
During the Byzantine Empire, Athens was a provincial town within its boundaries.
A lot of statues and artifacts were taken from the Acropolis in Athens by Lord Elgin and taken to other countries. Many are in the British Museum.
The hottest temperature recorded in Europe was in Athens in 1977. It was 118 °F.
The major shopping street in Athens is Ermou. It stretches for a mile.
They painted the Parthenon red, blue, and green. This is one of the interesting facts about Athens that not many people know.
The Benaki Museum in Athens houses over 100,000 Greek Artifacts.
The Athena Parthenos was a gigantic statue that was around 11.5 meters tall.
The Athens metro connects to the airport. Which I think all travelers can appreciate.
Athens has over 270 sunny days a year.
Fun Facts About Ancient Athens
Athens was not the first capital of Greece. It was Nafplio.
Athens is one of the oldest cities in the world.
It isn’t the oldest city in the world. But Athens’s history dates back over 3,400 years ago.
Some of the best stoicism quotes come from Ancient Athens. Where this school of philosophy was started in ancient Greece.
Athens has 17 UNSECO sites. And the most popular UNESCO World Heritage Site is the acropolis.
The most popular thing to see in Athens, Greece, is the Herodes Atticus. An old open-air theatre in ancient Greece.
The Ancient Agora is the best example of an agora we have from ancient Greece.
The Golden Age of Athens was in the 5th century.
Figs, grapes, and cheese were popular foods in Ancient Athens.
The Ancient Greek alphabet comprised 24 letters.
The city has been home to many civilizations throughout its history, from Ancient Greece to the Roman Empire, and from the middle east like the Ottoman Empire.
And today it is a major center of education, commerce, and tourism in Europe.
Ancient Athens was the birthplace of democracy, philosophy, the arts, and theater.
The city was also home to some of history’s most influential writers, like Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes.
It was a time of great peace, happiness, and prosperity for this Ancient Greek city.
Classical Athens was a powerful city-state that emerged with the seagoing development of the port of Piraeus
The ancient Athenians believed the gods had created them at the beginning of time and that they lived under the divine law of these.
Monastiraki Square is one of Athens’ oldest neighborhoods. And this central Athens marketplace is just as famous and popular today.
The Statue of Athena Promachos was a colossal bronze statue of the goddess Athena sculpted by Pheidias which stood between the Propylaea and the Parthenon
One interesting fact about Ancient times is that most Athenians didn’t pay taxes. I am sure this is just one of the interesting facts about Athens that we could all appreciate.
Fun Facts About Athens for Kids
Zeus was the most powerful Greek God. One of the seven wonders of the ancient world was the Olympian Zeus statue.
The Patron Goddess of Ancient Athens was Athena.
Greek Mythology inspired the Roman Gods.
The modern Olympic games were inspired by the ancient Greeks in Athens.
Athens was the first capital in Europe to be named the Capital of Culture.
They held the first Olympic Games in 776 BC.
The first modern Olympic Games took place in the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens in 1896.
They built Athens around a rocky hill called Acropolis, which is on a plain in the center of the Attica region.
The Temple of Athena Nike was built around the year 420 BC and is on the Acropolis of Athens.
Athens was known as an intellectual center during the classical era because of its many schools and academies.
The Ancient Temple dedicated to Athena Polias (protector of the city) was constructed between 525-500 BC
The ruins of Cape Sounion were once a temple to Poseidon.
The Acropolis took nine years to build.
Athens become rich because of rich deposits of marble, silver, and lead.
Athena, who Athens was named after, was the goddess of wisdom and war.
One fun fact about Athens for travelers. Every year in August, Athens has a full moon. During this time, the Acropolis stays open, and hosts live music and other events.
Plato founded the educational academy in 385 BC.
Interesting Facts About Athens Government
In Greek Democracy, anyone of 20 could take part.
The modern Athens government is a parliamentary republic
Greek democracy started in Athens.
It was a direct democracy, not a representative.
Athens was the first known democracy in the world.
The City of Athens required all men, up to age 50, to join the military for a year.
Today Athens is the capital and largest city in Greece. It is also the seat of the Greek government, which is located in the Old Royal Palace.
Ottoman Empire ruled in Greece, lasted from 1453 to the Greek War of Independence (1821)
In 1843, Athenians rose against King Otto in Syntagma Square to demand a constitution.
They have inhabited Athens since at least 3000 BC, but its golden age started with the rise of democracy in the 5th century BC.
It reached this golden age under the leadership of Pericles.
The official currency of Greece is the Euro.
Athens has one of the lowest crime rates for any capital city in the world.
Fun Facts About Athens and Sparta
In Athens, kids started school at 7. In Sparta, this is the age when you would be taken to the barracks to begin military training.
Ancient Athens once has over 1,000 city-states. This included Sparta, Corinth, Rhodes, and Thebes.
The Peloponnesian War lasted from 431 BC until 404 BC.
Ancient Greeks wore a chiton. Like a big t shirt.
Sparta and Athens are two powerful Greek cities. They have a long history of the rivalry.
But their rivalry isn’t one-sided. Each of the cities has its advantages and disadvantages, which make them unique from each other. It’s up to you to decide which city is better.
The war left both sides exhausted and ruined their economies, which meant that neither country could afford another conflict so soon after it had ended.
Athens is one of the oldest cities in the world. In ancient times, it boasted about being a center for commerce and culture.
But as we can see in our list of facts about Athens. That the city was much more than that.