ABSTRACT
T ravellers to Greece will notice the strongly articulated landscape; highmountain ranges separate the different provinces from each other andgive rise to areas suitable for small settlements. In spite of the good road connections today the mountains still form an obvious barrier. A second geographical aspect, which marks the landscape of Greece, is the close unity of land and sea. Almost every Greek province has several outlets to the Mediterranean; long stretches of land are closely connected to the sea by deep inlets. The geological structure of the country thus meant that in the past contact between the different areas of settlement took place more often by sea than by land. It is apparent, at least during Antiquity, that the structure of the landscape contributed essentially to the political formation of Greece, even though occasionally a city-state would consciously cross the natural borders in order to annex a neighbouring settlement area.
