Major Cities of the World

Athens-Greece

Athens is the largest city and capital of Greece, located in the Attica periphery of central Greece. Named after goddess Athena, Athens is one of the oldest cities in the world with a recorded history of at least 3,000 years.
Today, the Greek capital is Europe's 8th largest conurbation , a bustling and cosmopolitan metropolis with an urban population of 3.3 million and a metropolitan population of about 3.8 million people. The Athens metropolitan area is the centre of economic, financial, industrial, political and cultural life in Greece. The city is also rapidly becoming a leading business centre in the European Union. The city proper has a land area of 39 km² while the urban agglomeration of Athens spans 412 km².
Ancient Athens was a powerful city-state. A centre for the arts, learning and philosophy, home of Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum, Athens was also the birthplace of Socrates, Pericles, Sophocles and many other prominent philosophers, politicians and writers of the ancient world. It is widely referred to as the cradle of Western Civilization and the birthplace of Democracy, largely due to the impact of its cultural and political achievements during the 5th and 4th centuries BC on the rest of the then known European Continent.
The classical era heritage is still evident in the city, portrayed through a number of ancient monuments and artworks, the most famous of all being the Parthenon on the Acropolis, standing as an epic landmark of western civilization. The city has also a vast variety of Roman and Byzantine monuments, as well as a small remaining number of Ottoman monuments that project the city's long history through the centuries. Modern landmarks can also be found, dating back as far as 1830 (establishment of the new, independent Greek State). The Greek Parliament (19th century) , the Athens Trilogy (Library, University, Academy) and the new (2004) Athens Olympic Sports Complex are only some of these architectural landmarks.
Athens was the host city of the first modern-day Olympic Games in 1896 and in 2004 it welcomed the Summer Olympics back home with great success.

Geography
Athens sprawls across the central plain of Attica, often referred to as the Attica Basin, which is bound by Mount Aegaleo in the west, Mount Parnitha in the north, Mount Penteli in the northeast, Mount Hymettus in the east, and the Saronic Gulf in the southwest. Athens has expanded to cover the entire plain making future growth difficult. The geomorphology of Athens causes the so-called temperature inversion phenomenon, partly responsible for the air pollution problems the city has recently faced. (Los Angeles, with similar geomorphology, has similar problems). The pollution of Athens at one point was so destructive, that according to then Greek Minister of Culture, Constantine Trypanis, the carved details on the five caryatids of the Erechtheum have seriously degenerated, while the face of the horseman on the Parthenon's west side is all but obliterated. A series of strict measures taken by the authorities of the city throughout the 90's resulted to a dramatic improvement of air quality; nowadays smog (or nefos as Athenians used to call it) has become a rather rare phenomenon.
Athens is located at a transition point between the Mediterranean and the Alpine climatic zones. The city enjoys a typical Mediterranean climate, with the greatest amounts of precipitation mainly occurring from mid-October to mid-April; any precipitation is sparse during summer and falls generally in the form of showers and/or thunderstorms. Because it is located in a strong rain shadow, however, the Athenian climate is very dry compared with most of Mediterranean Europe. The mountainous northern suburbs, however, experience a somewhat differentiated climate with generally lower temperatures and more considerable snowfalls in winter. Fog is highly unusual at the city center but is more frequent to the east, behind the Hymettus mountain range.
Snowfalls occur in an almost yearly basis, though these do not normally lead to significant if any disruptions at all. Nevertheless, the city has experienced its share of blizzard-like conditions, demonstrated in severe episodes that, in fact, tend to become more and more often in this current decade. The most recent examples include the blizzard of March 1987, February 1992, January 2002, February 2004 and January 2006 all dumping heavy amounts of snow that literally blanketed the entire metropolitan area for days.
Spring and autumn are considered ideal seasons for sightseeing and indeed for all kinds of outdoor activities.
Summers can be particularly hot and at times prone to smog and pollution related conditions (admittedly, however, much less so compared to the past). The average summer daytime maximum temperature is 32°C. Heat waves are not too common and mostly happen during the months of July and/or August, when hot air masses come to Greece from the south or the southwest. It is only on such days that temperature maxima shoot over 38°C.
The all time high temperature for the metropolitan area of Athens is +45.0°C and was measured at the Nea Filadelfia suburb (July 2000, HNMS station), while the respective low temperature record is -10.4°C and was measured at the Votanikos area, close to the city center. In February 2004, temperatures plummeted to -7°C at the University Campus and to -10.1°C at the meteorological station of the National Observatory of Athens in Penteli.