Hello, this is .... and I am instructor
of world history
and today we are going to talk about
the geography of Ancient Greece.
And I want you to look at this map
and what is
what are some of the
characteristics
of the Greek land,
first thing you can see?
You probably noticed that Greece is surrounded by water
it has quite a lot of
islands
and
the surface is not 
even.
it's sort of ragged surface,
which means that
mainland Greece
is quite mountainous. In fact, Greece is about 80 percent mountains.
and the rest some plains.
and the other thing is that Greece is a part of the Balkan Peninsula
and it also has this Peloponnese Peninsula, which is almost an island
except for this little land that connects it with 
the mainland Greece.
And, as I said, 
Greece is surrounded by water, have the Ionian Sea to the West,
we have the Mediterranean Sea
then, we have the Aegean Sea to the East. 
So to summarize, we can say that basically
Greece is characterized by
mountains, valleys
coastlines and relatively few plain and rivers.
So
let's think about what are some of the effects of Greek geography.
too main things- we can talk about
separatism, about developing separate communities
and at the same time, we can talk about connectivity 
or developing of common identities, so
how is that possible
remember we talked about mountainous terrain of Greece, and also about
the many little islands
that are spotted around the water
so that in itself allows for the creation of little small communities. 
each one with its separate identity.
So the ancient Greeks did not think of themselves as
belonging to a Greek nation
but they had identities, usually, with their local cities 
so they thought of themselves as
 Athenians, 
or Spartans, or Corinthians. 
so that is this idea of separatism
now, the idea of connectivity 
is referred by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus
who is also known as the father of history
He talks about how the Greeks developed a common language
all Greeks from different localities within Greece, they could speak with each other,
they used a common language, Greek,
and they basically 
separated themselves from everybody else
through this belonging to a common culture, everybody else was 
a barbarian
Those who did not speak the Greek language
were considered barbarian. Not barbarian in the negative sense, in the way 
we modern people understand it, but barbarian as  those who 
did not belong to the Greek culture. They were separate from the Greeks.
So
the Greek shared common language, common religion, they had similar Gods
all across the Greek territory
and, you know, sort of common identity. 
So these are two characteristics, separatism and connectivity. 
And another very important effect of geography
was sort of 
the importance to grow a little bit of everything.
And the Greeks sort of grew everything but the three things that they are most famous for were
grains
olives
and grapes.
And that is very interesting that they are identified with
everybody uses olive oil
not any other type of oil
everybody drinks wine instead of drinking beer.
So this is what characterizes the Greek culture
so we have these crops that sustained the Greeks 
in the Mediterranean for thousands of years.
So thank you for watching, and 
I hope I will see you next time.
