List of historic Greek countries and regions
This is a list of Greek countries and regions throughout history. It includes empires, countries, states, regions and territories that have or had in the past one of the following characteristics:
- An ethnic Greek majority
- Greek language as an official language
- A Greek ruling class or dynasty
Antiquity (to 330 AD)
Bronze Age
During the Bronze Age a number of entities were formed in Mycenean Greece, each of them was ruled by a Wanax, the most important were:- Mycenae
- Thebes
- Pylos
- Knossos
- Tiryns
City states
- Athens
- Sparta
- Corinth
- Thebes
- Eretria
- Chalcis
- Syracuse
- Massalia
- Taras
Kingdoms, Empires and countries
- Kingdom of Mycenae
- Kingdom of Epirus
- Kingdom of Macedon
- *Alexandrian Empire
- Delian League
- Kingdom of Cyrene
- Thessalian League : confederation of Greek city states
- Chrysaorian League : confederation of Greek city states
- Odrysian kingdom
- Aetolian League : confederation of Greek city states
- Achaean League : confederation of Greek city states
- Kingdom of Pergamon
- Seleucid Empire
- Ptolemaic Kingdom
- Bosporan Kingdom
- Kingdom of Pontus : Persian origin, Hellenized in culture, and with Greek being the official language.
- Greco-Bactrian Kingdom
- Indo-Greek Kingdom
- Dayuan Kingdom
- Roman Empire : The Greek language had official status
Middle Ages (330–1453)
After 395 the Roman Empire splits in two. In the East, Greeks are the predominant national group and their language is the lingua franca of the region. Christianity is the official religion of this new Empire, spread to the region by the Greek language, the language in which the first gospels were written. The language of the aristocracy however remains Latin, until gradually replaced by Greek by 7th century. The East Roman Empire retained its status as the power at least in the Mediterranean world until the 12th century. Amongst its achievements is the spread of Christianity to Eastern Europe and the Slavs, halting the Persian, Slavic and Arab expansions towards Europe and preserving a vast amount of the cultural heritage of Greek-Roman Antiquity. But finally In 1204, after a civil struggle as to succession of throne among the members of ruling Angelid, the Fourth Crusade conquered the capital, Constantinople, and fell the Empire to partitions and crises from which it never recovered.
Byzantine Greek successor states
- Despotate of Epirus
- Empire of Nicaea, which re-established the Byzantine Empire in 1261.
- Empire of Trebizond
- Despotate of the Morea
- Principality of Theodoro
Crusader states
- County of Edessa : crusader state with a partly Greek population
- Principality of Antioch : crusader state with a partly Greek population
- Kingdom of Jerusalem : crusader state with a partly Greek population
- County of Tripoli : as a vassal of the Kingdom of Sicily with an ethnic Greek majority
- Kingdom of Cyprus : crusader state with an ethnic Greek majority and partly Greek dynasty
- Latin Empire : crusader state with an ethnic Greek majority, established after the sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade
- Kingdom of Thessalonica : crusader state with an ethnic Greek majority
- Duchy of Neopatria : crusader state with an ethnic Greek majority
- Margraviate of Bodonitsa : crusader state with an ethnic Greek majority
- Principality of Achaea : crusader state with an ethnic Greek majority
- Duchy of Athens : crusader state with an ethnic Greek majority
- Lordship of Argos and Nauplia : crusader state with an ethnic Greek majority
- Duchy of the Archipelago : crusader state with an ethnic Greek majority
- Knights Hospitaller of Rhodes : crusader state with an ethnic Greek majority
- : crusader state with an ethnic Greek majority
- Principality of Lesbos
- Various possessions of the Republic of Venice in Greece:
Other states
- Cretan Republic
Modern era (after 1453)
Independent states
- Septinsular Republic, independent but de facto occupied by Russia, France and Great Britain
- / Greece
- Cyprus
Autonomous, secessionist or unrecognised entities
- Autonomous Monastic State of the Holy Mountain: autonomous region of Greece since 1913. Autonomy dated at least to 943.
- Koinon of the Zagorisians : autonomous region of the Ottoman Empire
- Phanariote period in Wallachia & Moldavia : autonomous principalities ruled by the Phanariotes.
- Mani : autonomous or semi-autonomous region under the Ottoman Empire in the Peloponnese, ruled by its own bey
- United States of the Ionian Islands : amical protectorate of the United Kingdom.
- Regional administrations during the Greek War of Independence :
- Principality of Samos : incorporated into Greece.
- Eastern Rumelia : autonomous province in the Ottoman Empire with a Bulgarian demographic majority, unified with Bulgaria in 1885. Greek was one of three official languages and Greeks constituted a minority of 5.2%.
- : incorporated into Greece.
- Free State of Icaria : short-lived independent state, incorporated into Greece.
- Autonomous Republic of Northern Epirus : short-lived autonomous Greek state in modern-day Southern Albania/Northern Epirus under the Provisional Government of Northern Epirus. Autonomy recognised in the Protocol of Corfu.
- State of Thessaloniki : short-lived Venizelist Provisional Government established in Macedonia amidst the National Schism. It controlled northern Greece and the island of Crete. The rest of Greece was controlled by the government in Athens. Greece was reunited in 1917.
- Republic of Pontus : Pontian Greek short-lived state.
- Ionian autonomy : short-lived Greek dependency in the region of Ionia, Asia Minor, during the final stages of the Asia Minor expedition.
- Imbros and Tenedos: Aegean islands inhabited historically mainly by ethnic Greeks. Under Greek administration from 1912. Following the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, Gökçeada and Bozcaada became part of Turkey, but were exempted from the population exchange.
- Political Committee of National Liberation, otherwise known as the "Mountain Government": a provisional government established in liberated areas by the National Liberation Front in the last stages of the Axis occupation of Greece during World War II. It was integrated with the Greek government-in-exile in a national unity government at the Lebanon conference in May 1944, and existed until the full German withdrawal from the country in October.
- Provisional Democratic Government : a Communist Party-dominated provisional government established during the Greek Civil War in opposition to the royal government in Athens. It ceased to exist with the victory of the royalist forces in the civil war.