Geography and Natural Resources of Athens

Athens sprawls across the central plain of Attica that is often referred to as the Athens or Attica Basin. The basin is bounded by four large mountains: Mount Aegaleo to the west, Mount Parnitha to the north, Mount Penteli to the northeast and Mount Hymettus to the east. The Saronic Gulf lies to the southwest. Athens is built around a number of hills. Lycabettus is one of the tallest hills of the city proper and provides a view of the entire Attica Basin. In weather, Athens has a Mediterranean climate and receives enough precipitation to not be classified as a semi-arid climate. The dominant feature of Athens's climate is changing between prolonged hot and dry summers and mild, wet winters. With an average of 414.1 millimeters of yearly precipitation, rainfall occurs largely between the months of October and April. July and August are the driest months, where thunderstorms occur once or twice a month. Winter is usually cool and rainy with snowfalls more frequent in the north. In summary, Athens is a mountainous, rainy, and warm area to be. 

View of Attica Basin from the hill Lycabettus

Athens has many natural resources. Although, the soil is not very fertile. Only about 30 percent of the total land area in Greece can support crops. Wheat is Greece’s main crop. Other major crops include corn and other grains, cotton, figs, olives, oranges, peaches, potatoes, sugar beets, tobacco and tomatoes. Greece is one of the world’s leading producers of olive oil and raisins. Some natural vegetation found in Greece is small shrubs and pine trees. 

In the Mycenaean times, Greece was a land of thickly forested mountains. Farmers were limited  in the amount of crops they could grow other than a bit of barley and wheat, a few grape vines, fig trees and olive trees. By 650 BC, much of the forest was cut down for shipbuilding and the creation of coal for the metal workings. You would think that this would be good for farmers so that they can have more land. However this was disastrous as the rain fell in the winter along the mountainsides. It washed away any fertile soil that may have been there. This resulted in the land becoming even more infertile. The situation got so bad that in Athens, the statesman decided to import grains from Egypt to feed its population. This explains why Greece has so many olive trees today. These trees have become conditioned to the limited amount of moisture and grow with minimal watering.