page_title: Athens
section_title: Demographics
hierarchical_section_title: Athens / Demographics
caption_attribution_description: Η Αθήνα από ψηλά / Athens from above
context_page_description: Athens, is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning over 3,400 years and its earliest human presence started somewhere between the 11th and 7th millennium BC.
  Classical Athens was a powerful city-state. A center for the arts, learning and philosophy, home of Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum, it is widely referred to as the cradle of Western civilization and the birthplace of democracy, largely because of its cultural and political impact on the European continent, and in particular the Romans. In modern times, Athens is a large cosmopolitan metropolis and central to economic, financial, industrial, maritime, political and cultural life in Greece.
  Athens is a global city and one of the biggest economic centers in southeastern Europe. It has a large financial sector, and its port Piraeus is both the largest passenger port in Europe, and the second largest in the world.
  The Municipality of Athens, which actually constitutes a small administrative unit of the entire city, had a population of 664,046 within its official limits, and a land area of 38.96 km².
caption: The Athens Urban Area within the Attica Basin from space
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