Geography Of Ancient Greece Essay

The geography of Ancient Greece impacted Greeks and their civilization in a variety of ways. Greece is a small country in Southern Europe shaped like an outstretched hand, with fingers for land that reach into the Mediterranean Sea. The peninsula of Ancient Greece is bordered on the east by the Aegean Sea, on the west by the Ionian Sea and the south by the Mediterranean Sea. A peninsula is a land that is bordered on three sides by water just like the mainland of Greece. The mainland of Greece is full of steep, rugged mountains. The ancient Greeks lived on farms or in small villages scattered throughout the country. An immense amount of islands surround the country of Greece. Farms and villages that the Greeks lived on were isolated from one another by seas and mountains, meaning they were separated from one another.

Mountains and seas contributed an immense amount to the isolation of ancient Greek communities. Travel across …show more content…
The Greeks traded among the cities states, the colonies and in the vast Mediterranean region. Most of the goods being trade for were carried on ships built by merchants. The ships were made of wood with large, rectangular, cloth sails. The ships were incredibly slow, the ships would travel around three to five miles per hour, as the merchants built the ships not for speed, but for space to hold goods. A one-way trip from the mainland could take two months! Navigating the ships was incredibly hard, the Greeks had no compasses or charts, they only had the stars to guide them. The stars could tell the sailor the ships location, but not the dangers around the ship, there were no lighthouses to warn the sailors of the dangerous coastlines. Although despite the dangers, the adventurous sailors carried lots of goods and trade thrived among the Mediterranean