Ancient Greek States: Although everyone who lived in ancient Greece had a common language, culture and also religion, they were still distinguished into separate, political units which were also independent. These political units were at odds most of the times and sometimes there would even be wars against one another.

The Ancient Greek States

Now the ancient Greek states were called the city-state or the poleis which often consisted of a single city and all of the territories which were surrounding it.

geography of Greece

Now, if we look at the geography of Greece, we will get to know why exactly these poleis actually get separated and took place. The communicating and also traveling along the settlement areas weren’t very easy to do at all.

Since Greece had a lot of mountain ranges, traveling by the means of land had become a very difficult task. Now, one-fifth of the entire land could be farmed on and could give way to habitation. Most of the land was like little pockets, which was of fertile lands which were literally in an isolated place from each other.

Now apart from this, Greece was peninsular where fields of irregular land were surrounded by the Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea. Now traveling using the sea was easier but then, docks which had a coastline which was rugged could not be visited. Hence a part of the interior was completely getting cut off.

Once the land in the ancient Greek states was settling down, the communication among the different states was becoming possible. As the population number increased, the self-governing communities also increased and so did the fierce competition among them. This way there were wars and some of the states become a lot more powerful than the others.

Greek city-states Definition

A city-state had its own independent rules, laws, money, armies, and customs and so on. The loyalty of a Greek citizen was basically directed to the ancient Greek state to which he or she belonged to. Very often there were alliances which were formed among the different city-states, which used to help them out during the time of war.