Dbq Greek Geography

”You cannot find peace by avoiding life,” stated Virginia Woolf. The Greeks never gave up on their land, even though they had some hard times. They eventually found peace. Greece's geography had positive and negative effects on their early settlements.

Just before you go to sleep, you image yourself taking a ride to the White House. You then notice it's beautiful columns. As you look through columns, this type of architecture is ancient Greek. There are other place to find these Greek columns. Besides architecture, other developments from ancient civilizations have an impact on our world today, such as roads and Gregorian calendar.

From the struggles the people who lived in Ancient Greece had to face to the positives, geography has always had a great influence on Greece and how the people there survived. Two big positives being the climate which was perfect for growing valuable olive trees and another positive being the seas that surrounded Greece and allowed the Greeks to trade and help them in many other ways. Two big negatives being the rocky, mountainous terrain and another negative being the common volcano eruptions and earthquakes. Although Ancient Greece had its negatives so does every country and it were these pros and cons that helped the Greeks develop essential survival skills.

Ancient empire uses their political power in different way. The empire use their political powers to rule the societies and run there people. In advance to 600 BCE ancient empire exerted there political power in various ways; which included promotion of ideologies, promotion of good government officials, and creating legal systems. Greek and Persians political power where fairly different but both of them were great empires. In document two it state that the Greek empire was a democracy and believed in morals and good deeds with “laws secures equal rights” say that every is treat fairly.

The ancient Greeks lived in the dry, hot mountainous land of what is modern day Italy. The lack of science and technology of the time caused them to believe the gods were responsible for everything around them.In document 2 states,”According to ancient greeks, their gods controlled every part of daily life--the weather, crops, love, money and business, phases of the moon, earthquakes, and even weather a loaf of bread burned in the oven.” So was this more helpful or hurtful? The Greeks not only lived a mountainous area but also an extremely unstable and very volcanic area. Many city states could be destroyed in a moments notice. Document 3 states that,”This got the Greeks interested in a particular kind of religion called oracles. Oracles are

One of the negatives that the geography had on Greece was the common natural disasters. Greece’s environment had several active volcanoes. They also had very common earthquakes. In document 3 it states the Greeks were always nervous when living in Greece because at any given moment there could be a natural disaster. This is negative because frequently the volcanoes would erupt and earthquakes would happen and they would destroy their cities and they would have to move somewhere else or rebuild

Basing at the “strayer” argument, he argued that among the factors that contributed to Mediterranean area adapting to Greek culture were because of the political development, whereby he said that availability of the mountainous terrain facilitated the elaboration of the towns and the city states. Moreover, most Greeks cities were designed in a way that they were able to support and promote commercial activities such as trade. Therefore, comparing many features in Greek culture and those of the areas such as in Mediterranean contributed to the lasting effects of Greek culture and its spread throughout the Mediterranean world.

One way was the sea. Athens was located on the Attica peninsula so they were surrounded by water on three sides and Athens built its naval supremacy of Triremes. The Triremes gave Athens control of the Mediterranean Sea so they controlled trade and gained the name the “Big Olive.” A lot of the battles of the Persian war were fought with navies and the Trireme allowed for them to win the narrow straits of Salamis. The sea also greatly impacted economy. The Ionian Sea, Mediterranean Sea, and Aegean Sea connected all of the land and islands of Ancient Greece so they could trade with one another. The Sea also allowed for travel and they could trade with other countries like Egypt. They could make a profit for their natural resources and benefit from obtaining resources that were not natural to Greece at the time. The biggest impact geography had on Greece was the land. The land was dry with only 20% arable land and it was extremely mountainous. The mountains ran from the northwest part of Greece to the southeast part along the Balkan Peninsula. Due to the dryness, the Greek city states were constantly looking to expand their land and the mountains caused each city state to be spread apart. This made them have decentralized governments. Also due to the mountainous geography, there were over 1000 Greek city states including Athens and Sparta. Land also was on Sparta’s side during the Peloponnesian

Ancient Greece is known for its history. Because of it’s geography, history, economy, people, politics, and education, it was a great civilization. Ancient Greece still impacts us today. Ancient Greece’s geography was important to civilization. It was on the European mainland which is a land full of mountains.

The physical geography of Ancient Greece promoted and impeded the movement of people, products, and ideas in many ways. First, one way the mountains promoted Ancient Greece was providing stone for building. Another way is it provided gold and silver to trade with other countries. Next, they were able to grow olive trees to use for oil and olives. One reason the mountains impeded Ancient Greece is it resulted in different governments and ways of life.

Shortly, economic, political, and social cooperation between the Greeks and those around them became compulsory and similar. As shown in the Greek Colonization Map (chapter3) the procedure of Greek settlement became stronger on the coasts of Anatolia lastingly changing the cultural geography of the Mediterranean world and the swap of cultures from the Greek to others and vice versa, as a fast result of trade. The western shores of Anatolia held the Greek culture strongly for the following thousands of years. A large amount of Greeks settled in southern parts of Italy which the Romans called Magna Graecia “Greater Greece.” The hunt for bazaars, possessions, and trade paths indorsed more understanding between cultures. Trade involving long distance was significant for a new arising economy but also the pipeline for concepts, and technical growth. Egyptians admired Greek’s pottery and wool while, the Greek’s revered the Egyptians Canaanite glass, and amulets. As seen in Egypt And Its Neighbors Map (Chapter 2) this led to a greater mutual

One of the problems was that the "Greeks lived in independent communities or societies isolated from each other." As stated in Document five, Also stated in document five "Later these communities were organized into polesis or city-states. " The natural boundaries were hills and mountains and there was many of them in Greece. " Also, when Greece was attacked by a different country or civilization like Persia most of Greece would unite together. " That's what the first negative effect it had on ancient Greek Civilization, now on to the second negative

Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, historically also known as Hellas, is a country in southeastern Europe, with a population of approximately 11 million as of 2015. Athens is the nation's capital and largest city, followed by Thessaloniki. Greece is strategically located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Situated on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the northeast. Greece consists of nine geographic regions: Macedonia, Central Greece, the Peloponnese, Thessaly, Epirus, the Aegean Islands, Thrace, Crete, and the Ionian Islands. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of the mainland, the Ionian Sea

When telling about the geography of Greece, all five themes of geography need to be addressed. The five themes of geography are location, place, region, movement, and human-environmental interaction. The absolute location of a specific place is the coordinates of a map using longitude and latitude. A place is an area that is defined by its physical and cultural characteristics. A region is areas that are similar and have definite characteristics. The movement is the way people, products, and ideas travel from one place to another. Human-environmental interaction is the relationship between humans and the environment in a certain area.

To begin, geography had a very crucial role in both civilizations. The two were in mountainous terrains (Greece.pdf pg. 95), despite both civilizations being in separate regions. In Greece, there were mountains all around in clusters which made it harder to extend land on and separated the Greeks from one another. This type of land created city-states, which were small regions between the mountains which that full of citizens. Since the mountains were barriers for city-states, there would be no contact between them.