According to the 2021 census, 643,450 people lived in the Athens municipality, making it the largest city in Greece. The second-most populated municipality, Thessaloniki, had approximately 319,050 inhabitants.

Around 3.15 million people lived in the Athens metropolitan area, making it the largest metropolitan area in Greece in 2021. The second-most populated metropolitan area, Thessaloniki, had approximately 802,390 inhabitants. At the municipality level, Athens was the largest city in the country with 643,452 residents.

Greece GR: Population in Largest City data was reported at 3,157,451.000 Person in 2017. This records a decrease from the previous number of 3,159,302.000 Person for 2016. Greece GR: Population in Largest City data is updated yearly, averaging 3,062,740.500 Person from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2017, with 58 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 3,187,197.000 Person in 2001 and a record low of 1,813,686.000 Person in 1960. Greece GR: Population in Largest City data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Greece – Table GR.World Bank.WDI: Population and Urbanization Statistics. Population in largest city is the urban population living in the country's largest metropolitan area.; ; United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects.; ;

Population in the largest city (% of urban population) in Greece was reported at 37.5 % in 2024, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. Greece - Population in the largest city - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on August of 2025.

Greece GR: Population in Largest City: as % of Urban Population data was reported at 37.274 % in 2017. This records a decrease from the previous number of 37.402 % for 2016. Greece GR: Population in Largest City: as % of Urban Population data is updated yearly, averaging 41.153 % from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2017, with 58 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 45.213 % in 1975 and a record low of 37.226 % in 2011. Greece GR: Population in Largest City: as % of Urban Population data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Greece – Table GR.World Bank.WDI: Population and Urbanization Statistics. Population in largest city is the percentage of a country's urban population living in that country's largest metropolitan area.; ; United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects.; Weighted average;

Population in largest city in Greece was reported at 3154591 in 2024, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. Greece - Population in largest city - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on August of 2025.

This dataset presents detailed 100-meter LCZ maps for the five most populated cities in Greece (Athens, Thessaloniki, Larissa, Patras, and Heraklion), along with key urban form parameters, such as building height, and height-to-width ratio. These data were developed using a hybrid GIS-based and remote sensing-based framework that incorporates ultra-high-resolution elevation models (0.8 m), supported by Copernicus Earth Observation and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) datasets. Special attention was given to ensure seamless integration with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, enabling highly-resolved numerical weather analysis for the targeted urban areas. This was achieved by including in the dataset city-specific surface and urban canopy properties for each LCZ class, assigned through a Land Use / Land Cover (LU/LC) classification at 100 m spatial resolution in WRF compliant format. The LU/LC data were constructed by integrating the LCZ urban classes with CORINE land cover information for the natural areas.

The dataset is organized into three main directories: (i) Urban_Parameters, (ii) Local_Climate_Zones, and (iii) WRF_Input:
(i) The Urban_Parameters directory contains 100-meter GeoTIFF maps of building heights (H) and height-to-width-ratios (H/W) for the five Greek cities., these are projected in UTM Zone 34N (EPSG:32634), except for Heraklion, which is provided in UTM Zone 35N (EPSG: 32635). The file naming convention follows the format: cityName_urbanParameter.tif (e.g., athens_buildingHeight.tif).

(ii) The Local_Climate_Zones directory contains 100-meter GeoTIFF LCZ maps for five Greek cities (Athens, Thessaloniki, Larissa, Patras, and Heraklion). These maps include urban LCZ classes corresponding to LCZs 1 to 10 and LCZ E. Similar to the urban parameter’s maps, LCZs are projected in UTM Zone 34N, except for Heraklion (UTM Zone 35N). The file naming convention follows the format: cityName_lcz.tif (e.g., athens_lcz.tif).

(iii) The WRF_Input directory is divided into three subdirectories:
(a) CLC_LCZ_WRF_tif: This subdirectory contains merged CORINE Land Cover (CLC) and LCZ maps, forming a gridded Land Use / Land Cover (LU/LC) dataset, designed to be used as the input surface classes in WRF modelling. The maps are provided in GeoTIFF format in the same projections as the previous GeoTIFF files. The file naming convention follows the format: cityName_clc_lcz_WRF_version.tif (e.g., athens_clc_lcz_WRF_v1.tif).
• Version v1: Applicable to WRF versions prior to WRF version 4.4.2, with LCZs numbered from 31 to 41
• Version v2: Applicable to WRF version 4.4.2. and later versions, with LCZs numbered from 51 to 61.
(b) CLC_LCZ_WRF: This subdirectory includes the same LU/LC data as CLC_LCZ_WRF_tif, converted into binary format for compatibility with the WPS (WRF Pre-processing System) system and transformed into geographical coordinates. It is divided into further subdirectories named according to the format cityName_clc_lcz_WRF_version (e.g., athens_clc_lcz_WRF_v1) containing the binary files. The versioning of WRF follows the same logic as described above.
(c) Urban_Parameters_WRF: This subdirectory contains city-specific surface and urban canopy properties (e.g., width of streets, building heights) for each LCZ class, stored in WRF compliant look-up tables (URBPARM_LCZ.TBL). The file naming convention for these files is: cityName_URBPARM_LCZ.TBL (e.g., athens_URBPARM_LCZ.TBL).

Greece is one of the countries most affected by the current financial crisis. Since 2010, when the Greek government and IMF/EU/ECB agreed on the largest loan ever received by a single country, Greece has seen sweeping transformations in the character of its polity and state functions. The Greek version of the crisis has produced a rupture in the modus operandi of the state in question and in its relationship with its citizenry. The main axis of this rupture is the systemic challenge and reconfiguration of the category 'public' - which of course includes public spaces. This research focuses on the newly emerging public socialities in reference to public urban spaces. The idea of emphasizing spontaneous and unspontaneous socio-spatial practices, public urban materialities and spatialities in the capital city of Greece appears as an ideal way in which to study the wide variety of the social consequences of the financial crisis.

The strategic development of Kalamata has been focused on two main areas: the restoration of the city's historic urban core and the revitalization of its waterfront, with recent efforts emphasizing the latter. The waterfront's increasing importance in urban development strategies highlights the city's commitment to take action against climate change, as being part of the EU Mission for 100 climate-neutral and smart cities network. The municipality envisions the waterfront as the primary direction for local development, aiming for it to be accessible, responsive, and significant, all while maintaining its unique local character. This paper showcases strategies employed in waterfront redevelopment using six case studies from Cyprus, Greece, Croatia, Denmark, Portugal and the USA. The case studies for Larnaca (Cyprus), Thessaloniki (Greece) and Rijeka (Croatia) were selected because of their proximity to Kalamata in the Mediterranean and their similar weather patterns, cultural traits and social practices. Like Kalamata, the cities of Vijle (Denmark), Viana do Castelo (Portgual) and Annapolis (USA) are small-to-medium sized urban areas, similar in terms of geography and demographics, that offer interesting lessons in sustainable community and economic development along waterfront areas.

The HEAT-ALARM Urban Morphology and Environment Database (UMED) provides ultra-high-resolution data that characterize the landscape, form and function of the five highest populated cities in Greece (Athens, Thessaloniki, Larissa, Patras, Heraklion) for integration in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, versions 4.3-4.4.1 (Skamarock et al., 2021), in order to enable the highly-resolved numerical weather prediction (NWP) over the targeted urban areas as part of the weather forecasting component of the project's heat-health warning system (HHWS). These data include: (a) terrain elevation based on the 3-arc-sec (~ 90 m) horizontal grid resolution SRTM (shuttle radar topography mission) data, version 4.1 (Jarvis et al., 2008), (b) land use/land cover (LU/LC) at 100 m spatial resolution, constructed by combining CORINE land cover data (CLC – Feranec et al., 2016) and Local Climate Zone (LCZ – Stewart and Oke, 2012) classification, and (c) city-specific surface and urban canopy properties (e.g., width of streets, albedo of roofs) for each LCZ class, assigned in look-up tables (URBPARM_LCZ.TBL). Along with UMED, the GEOGRID.TBL.ARW_HEAT-ALARM is provided for assisting the WRF implementation with the above data.

Considering that such finely detailed data have been incorporated in modeling studies only in Athens so far (e.g. Giannaros et al., 2014; Agathangelidis et al., 2019; Giannaros et al., 2018, 2023), the development and distribution of UMED in the framework of HEAT-ALARM constitutes an important step towards the creation of an open-access national urban dataset in Greece that can be used for accurately describing and modeling the urban environments under various applications.

More information on the data generation and their use within the WRF-urban modeling framework can be found at: https://osf.io/p2qrd.

References

Agathangelidis, I., Cartalis, C., Santamouris, M., 2019. Integrating Urban Form, Function, and Energy Fluxes in a Heat Exposure Indicator in View of Intra-Urban Heat Island Assessment and Climate Change Adaptation. Clim. . https://doi.org/10.3390/cli7060075

Feranec, J., Soukup, T., Hazeu, G., & Jaffrain, G. (Eds.), 2016. European Landscape Dynamics: CORINE Land Cover Data (1st ed.). CRC Press. https://doi.org/10.1201/9781315372860

Giannaros, C., Agathangelidis, I., Papavasileiou, G., Galanaki, E., Kotroni, V., Lagouvardos, K., Giannaros, T.M., Cartalis, C., Matzarakis, A., 2023. The extreme heat wave of July–August 2021 in the Athens urban area (Greece): Atmospheric and human-biometeorological analysis exploiting ultra-high resolution numerical modeling and the local climate zone framework. Sci. Total Environ. 857, 159300. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.159300

Giannaros, C., Nenes, A., Giannaros, T.M., Kourtidis, K., Melas, D., 2018. A comprehensive approach for the simulation of the Urban Heat Island effect with the WRF/SLUCM modeling system: The case of Athens (Greece). Atmos. Res. 201, 86–101. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosres.2017.10.015

Giannaros, T.M., Melas, D., Daglis, I.A., Keramitsoglou, I., 2014. Development of an operational modeling system for urban heat islands: An application to Athens, Greece. Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. 14, 347–358. https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-14-347-2014

Jarvis, A., Reuter, H.I., Nelson, A., Guevara, E., 2008. Hole-filled SRTM for the globe, version 4, available from the CGIAR-CSI SRTM 90 m database (http://srtm.csi.cgiar.org)

Skamarock, W.C., Klemp, J.B., Dudhia, J., Gill, D.O., Liu, Z., Berner, J., Wang, W., Power, J.G., Duda, M.G., Backer, D.M., Huang, X.Y., 2021. A Description of the Advanced Research WRF Model Version 4.3. NCAR Technical Note (NCAR/TN-556+STR), Boulder, Colorando, USA. Available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.5065/1dfh-6p97

Stewart, I.D., Oke, T.R., 2012. Local climate zones for urban temperature studies. Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 93, 1879–1900. https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00019.1

The Urban Atlas is providing pan-European comparable land use and land cover data for Large Urban Zones with more than 100.000 inhabitants as defined by the Urban Audit. Urban Atlas' mission is to provide high-resolution hotspot mapping of changes in urban spaces and indicators for users such as city governments, the European Environment Agency (EEA) and European Commission departments.

The report starts with a brief overview land use, governance, and value capture, explaining why they are important for sustainable urban development. The second section introduces the concept and potential of land readjustment as a tool for urban transformation that can address various challenges such as urban sprawl, climate change, disaster recovery, and social inclusion. The third section presents a comparative analysis of land readjustment policies in different contexts, with a focus on the Japanese case, which is considered a global best practice, and the UN-Habitat's PILAR approach, which is designed for developing countries. Next the attention turns to Greece with a review of the legal framework and implementation process, and then a deep dive into a practical case in Kalamata. This medium-sized city successfully used land replotting for post-disaster reconstruction and urban expansion, with plans to apply the approach to support urban renewal and climate adaptation. The report concludes with key findings and recommendations for improving and expanding the use of land readjustment in Greece and other European countries.

The annual number of passengers of the Athens' three-lined subway system remained almost stable between 2015 to 2019. In 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the ridership of the metro network dropped by ** percent, compared to 2019 levels. Athens is the capital and largest city in Greece.

GR：最大城市人口在12-01-2017达3,157,451.000人，相较于12-01-2016的3,159,302.000人有所下降。GR：最大城市人口数据按年更新，12-01-1960至12-01-2017期间平均值为3,062,740.500人，共58份观测结果。该数据的历史最高值出现于12-01-2001，达3,187,197.000人，而历史最低值则出现于12-01-1960，为1,813,686.000人。CEIC提供的GR：最大城市人口数据处于定期更新的状态，数据来源于World Bank，数据归类于全球数据库的希腊 – Table GR.World Bank.WDI：人口和城市化进程统计。

The number of inbound visits in Greece grew significantly in 2024 over the previous year, exceeding pre-pandemic levels. In 2024, the Attica region, which includes the city of Athens, recorded the most inbound visits, at roughly *** million. Southern Aegean, Central Macedonia, and Crete followed in the ranking that year. What are the leading inbound travel markets in Greece? In 2024, Germany was the leading inbound tourist market in Greece, with over **** million arrivals in the country. The United Kingdom reported the second-highest figure that year, with approximately *** million arrivals. Overall, the total number of international travelers in Greece peaked at over ** million in 2024. How many Greek tourists travel abroad? The number of outbound travelers from Greece grew by ***** percent in 2024 over the previous year, totaling almost *** million. Despite the annual increase, the volume of outbound travelers remained below pre-pandemic levels.

GR：最大城市人口占城市总人口的百分比在12-01-2017达37.274%，相较于12-01-2016的37.402%有所下降。GR：最大城市人口占城市总人口的百分比数据按年更新，12-01-1960至12-01-2017期间平均值为41.153%，共58份观测结果。该数据的历史最高值出现于12-01-1975，达45.213%，而历史最低值则出现于12-01-2011，为37.226%。CEIC提供的GR：最大城市人口占城市总人口的百分比数据处于定期更新的状态，数据来源于World Bank，数据归类于全球数据库的希腊 – 表 GR.世行.WDI：人口和城市化进程统计。

The annual number of passengers of the Athens streetcar network reported an overall decline between 2015 and 2019. In 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the ridership of the Athens tram lines dropped by ** percent and stood at approximately *********** passengers. Athens is the capital and largest city of Greece.