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 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 (1600-1100 BC), each of them was rule by a Wanax, the most important were: Mycenae, Thebes, Pylos, Knossos (after c. 1450 BC), Tiryns.

City states

During the history of Ancient Greece a total of 1,500 to 2,000^[1] city-states were established. The most important were the following.

• Athens (1796–338 BC)
• Sparta (11th century – 195 BC)
• Corinth (7th century – 337 BC)
• Thebes (? – 338 BC)
• Eretria (? – 338 BC)
• Chalcis (? – 338 BC)
• Syracuse (734–212 BC)

Kingdoms, Empires and Leagues

• Kingdom of Mycenae (c. 2110 – c. 1100 BC)
• Kingdom of Epirus (? – 167 BC)
• Macedon (808–146 BC)

• Alexandrian Empire (334–323 BC)

• Kingdom of Cyrene (632–30 BC)
• Chrysaorian League (? – 203 BC): confederation of Greek city states
• Aetolian League (370–189 BC): confederation of Greek city states
• Seleucid Empire (312–63 BC)
• Ptolemaic Kingdom (305–30 BC)
• Kingdom of Pontus (302–64 BC): Persian origin,^[2][3][4] Hellenized in culture,^[5] and with Greek being the official language.^[6]
• Achaean League (256–146 BC): confederation of Greek city states
• Greco-Bactrian Kingdom (250–125 BC)
• Indo-Greek Kingdom (180 BC – 10 AD)
• Kingdom of Commagene (163 BC – 72 AD)
• Roman Empire (27 BC – 1204 AD; 1261 - 1453): the Greek language had official status throughout most of the time.

Middle Ages (330–1453)

The Greek Middle Ages are coterminous with the duration of the Byzantine Empire (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 the 6th century. The East Roman Empire remained one of the world's most important states 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 Antiquity. In 1204, after a civil struggle, the Fourth Crusade conquered the capital, Constantinople, and led the Empire to partitions and crises from which it never recovered.

Byzantine Greek successor states

• Despotate of Epirus (1205–1479)
• Empire of Nicaea (1204–1261), which re-established the Byzantine Empire in 1261.
• Empire of Trebizond (1204–1461)
• Despotate of the Morea (1308/1348–1460)

Crusader states

• County of Edessa (1098–1149: crusader state with a partly Greek population

• Lordship of Turbessel: vassal of the County of Edessa

• Principality of Antioch (1098–1268): crusader state with a partly Greek population
• Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099–1291): crusader state with a partly Greek population

• Vassals of the Kingdom of Jerusalem

• County of Tripoli (1102–1289: crusader state with a partly Greek population
• County palatine of Cephalonia and Zakynthos (1185–1479): part of the Kingdom of Sicily with an ethnic Greek majority
• Kingdom of Cyprus (1192–1489): crusader state with an ethnic Greek majority and partly Greek dynasty
• Latin Empire (1204–1261): crusader state with an ethnic Greek majority, established after the sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade
• Kingdom of Thessalonica (1202–1224): crusader state with an ethnic Greek majority
• Duchy of Neopatria (1204–1390): crusader state with an ethnic Greek majority
• Margraviate of Bodonitsa (1204–1414): crusader state with an ethnic Greek majority
• Principality of Achaea (1205–1432): crusader state with an ethnic Greek majority
• Duchy of Athens (1205–1458): crusader state with an ethnic Greek majority
• Lordship of Argos and Nauplia (1205–1388): crusader state with an ethnic Greek majority
• Duchy of the Archipelago (1207–1579: crusader state with an ethnic Greek majority
• Lordship of Chios (1304–1566): crusader state with an ethnic Greek majority
• Knights Hospitaller of Rhodes (1310–1522): crusader state with an ethnic Greek majority
•  Knights of St. John of Kastellorizo (1309–1440): crusader state with an ethnic Greek majority
• Principality of Lesbos (1355–1462)
• Various possessions of the Republic of Venice in Greece:

• Kingdom of Crete (1204–1669)
• Kingdom of Cyprus (1489–1573)
• Ionian Islands (acquired at various times, held until 1799)
• Kingdom of the Morea (c. 1690–1715)
• Lordship of Negroponte (1204–1470): crusader state with an ethnic Greek majority

Other states

• Principality of Theodoro (1204–1475)
• Cretan Republic (1332–1371)

Modern era (after 1453)

Independent states

• Septinsular Republic (1800–1815), independent but de facto occupied by Russia (1800-1807), France (1807-1814) and Great Britain (1809-1815)
• / Greece (1822–present)
• Cyprus (1960–present)

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 (1670–1868): autonomous region of the Ottoman Empire
• Phanariote period in Wallachia & Moldavia (1711–1821): autonomous principalities ruled by the Phanariotes.
• Mani (17th century – 1821): autonomous or semi-autonomous region under the Ottoman Empire in the Peloponnese, ruled by its own bey
• United States of the Ionian Islands (1815–1864): amical protectorate of the United Kingdom.
• Regional administrations during the Greek War of Independence (March 1821 – c. 1825):

• Peloponnesian Senate
• Senate of Western Continental Greece
• Areopagus of Eastern Continental Greece
• Polity of Crete
• Military-Political System of Samos

• Principality of Samos (1835–1912): incorporated into Greece.
• Eastern Rumelia (1878–1885): autonomous province in the Ottoman Empire with a Bulgarian demographic majority, unified with Bulgaria in 1885. Greek was one of three official languages^[7] and Greeks constituted a minority of 5.2%.^[8]
•  Cretan State (1898–1913): incorporated into Greece.
• Free State of Icaria (1912): short-lived independent state, incorporated into Greece.
• Autonomous Republic of Northern Epirus (1914): 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.^[9]
• State of Thessaloniki (1916–1917): 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 (State of Athens). Greece was reunited in 1917.
• Republic of Pontus (1917–1922): Pontian Greek short-lived state.^[10]
• Ionian autonomy (1922): 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 (Imbros) and Bozcaada (Tenedos) became part of Turkey, but were exempted from the population exchange.^[11]

References

1. Rural Greece Under the Democracy, Victor Davis Hanson, Times Literary Supplement, 2004
2. The Foreign Policy of Mithridates VI Eupator, King of Pontus, by B. C. McGing, page 11
3. Children of Achilles: The Greeks in Asia Minor Since the Days of Troy, by John Freely, page 69-70
4. Strabo of Amasia: A Greek Man of Letters in Augustan Rome, by Daniela Dueck, page 3
5. Children of Achilles: The Greeks in Asia Minor Since the Days of Troy, by John Freely, page 69-70
6. The Foreign Policy of Mithridates VI Eupator, King of Pontus, by B. C. McGing, page 11
7. Anna Krateva, Communities and identities in Bulgaria, 1998, p.164
8. Regional Museum of History, Plovdiv
9. http://www.da.mod.uk/colleges/csrc/document-listings/balkan/G97," In May 1914, the Great Powers signed the Protocol of Corfu, which recognised the area as Greek."
10. Republic of Pontus (Greece, 1917-1922), Flags of the World
11. Gross, Andreas. "Gökçeada (Imbros) and Bozcaada (Tenedos): preserving the bicultural character of the two Turkish islands as a model for co-operation between Turkey and Greece in the interest of the people concerned". Council of Europe. Retrieved 4 September 2012.