Administrative regions of Greece


The administrative regions of Greece are the country's thirteen first-level administrative entities, each comprising several second-level units, originally prefectures and, since 2011, regional units.

History

The current regions were established in July 1986, by decision of the then Interior Minister Menios Koutsogiorgas as second-level administrative entities, complementing the prefectures. Before 1986, there was a traditional division into broad historical–geographical regions, which, however, was often arbitrary; not all of the pre-1986 traditional historical-geographic regions had official administrative bodies. Although the post-1986 regions were mostly based on the earlier divisions, they are usually smaller and, in a few cases, do not overlap with the traditional definitions: for instance, the region of Western Greece, which had no previous analogue, comprises territory belonging to the Peloponnese peninsula and the traditional region of Central Greece.
As part of a decentralization process inspired by the then Interior Minister Alekos Papadopoulos, they were accorded more powers in the 1997 Kapodistrias reform of local and regional government. They were transformed into fully separate entities by the 2010 Kallikratis Plan, which entered into effect on 1 January 2011. In the 2011 changes, the government-appointed general secretary was replaced with a popularly elected regional governor and a regional council with 5-year terms. Many powers of the prefectures, which were also abolished or reformed into regional units, were transferred to the region level. The regional organs of the central government were in turn replaced by seven decentralized administrations, which group from one to three regions under a government-appointed general secretary.

List of administrative regions

Bordering the region of Central Macedonia there is one autonomous region, Mount Athos, a monastic community under Greek sovereignty. It is located on the easternmost of the three large peninsulas jutting into the Aegean from the Chalkidiki peninsula.
Administrative RegionSeatArea
Population
Population Density
Gross domestic product
Per capita gross domestic product
-
1AtticaAthens3,8083,812,3301001.11110,54628,997
2Central GreeceLamia15,549546,87035.1710,53719,007
3Central MacedoniaThessaloniki18,8111,874,59099.6632,28516,559
4CreteHeraklion8,336621,34074.5411,24318,421
5Eastern Macedonia and ThraceKomotini14,157606,17042.829,26515,272
6EpirusIoannina9,203336,65036.585,07914,221
7Ionian IslandsCorfu2,307206,47089.504,13017,726
8North AegeanMytilene3,836197,81051.573,33016,638
9PeloponneseTripoli15,490581,98037.579,80916,580
10South AegeanErmoupoli5,286308,61058.387,64624,828
11ThessalyLarissa14,037730,73052.0611,60815,772
12Western GreecePatras11,350680,19059.9310,65914,332
13Western MacedoniaKozani9,451282,12029.855,50618,786