Claim: Greece shares land borders with Albania.

Greece is a country in Southern Europe , located at the crossroads of Europe , Asia , and Africa . Its mainland is located at the southernmost tip of the Balkan Peninsula and is surrounded on the north by Albania , the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria ; to the east by the Aegean Sea and Turkey , to the south by the Mediterranean Sea and to the west by the Ionian Sea and Italy .   The country consists of a large mainland and two additional smaller peninsulas projecting from it ; the Chalkidice and the Peloponnese , which is separated from the mainland by the Isthmus of Corinth . Greece also features a large number of islands , of various sizes , both large ones including Crete , Euboea , Rhodes and Corfu , and groups of smaller ones such as the Dodecanese and the Cyclades . According to the CIA World Factbook , Greece has 13,676 km of coastline , the largest in the Mediterranean Basin .   Greece is largely mountainous , with its latitude ranging from 35 ° 00 ′ N to 42 ° 00 ′ N and in longitude from 19 ° 00 ′ E to 28 ° 30 ′ E . As a result , the country has considerable climatic variation .