contains a metro station, named Omonia station.

The square is the focus for

celebration of sporting victories, as seen after the country's winning of the Euro
2004 and the EuroBasket 2005 tournaments.

Aiolou Street in the centre. On the left is the building of the National Bank of
Greece.
Metaxourgeio (Greek: Μεταξουργείο) is a neighborhood of Athens. The neighborhood is
located north of the historical centre of Athens, between Kolonos to the east and
Kerameikos to the west, and north of Gazi. Metaxourgeio is frequently described as
a transition neighborhood. After a long period of abandonment in the late 20th
century, the area is acquiring a reputation as an artistic and fashionable
neighborhood following the opening of art galleries, museums, restaurants and
cafés. [1] Local efforts to beautify and invigorate the neighborhood have
reinforced a sense of community and artistic expression. Anonymous art pieces
containing quotes and statements in both English and Ancient Greek have sprung up
throughout the neighborhood, bearing statements such as "Art for art's sake" (Τέχνη
τέχνης χάριν). Guerrilla gardening has also helped to beautify the area.

Apartment buildings near Kolonaki Square.

Psiri – The reviving Psiri (Greek: Ψυρρή) neighbourhood – also known as Athens's
"meat packing district" – is dotted with renovated former mansions, artists'
spaces, and small gallery areas. A number of its renovated buildings also host
fashionable bars, making it a hotspot for the city in the last decade, while live
music restaurants known as "rebetadika", after rebetiko, a unique form of music
that blossomed in Syros and Athens from the 1920s until the 1960s, are to be found.
Rebetiko is admired by many, and as a result rebetadika are often crammed with
people of all ages who will sing, dance and drink till dawn.
The Gazi (Greek: Γκάζι) area, one of the latest in full redevelopment, is located
around a historic gas factory, now converted into the Technopolis cultural
multiplex, and also includes artists' areas, small clubs, bars and restaurants, as
welping streets in Europe, and the tenth most expensive retail street in the world.
[82] Nearby, the renovated Army Fund building in Panepistimiou Street includes the
"Attica" department store and several upmarket designer stores.

Neoclassical houses in the historical neighbourhood of Plaka.

Plaka, Monastiraki, and Thission – Plaka (Greek: Πλάκα), lying just beneath the
Acropolis, is famous for its plentiful neoclassical architecture, making up one of
the most scenic districts of the city. It remains a prime tourist destination with
tavernas, live performances and street salesmen. Nearby Monastiraki (Greek:
Μοναστηράκι), for its part, is known for its string of small shops and markets, as
well as its crowded flea market and tavernas specialising in souvlaki. Another
district known for its student-crammed, stylish cafés is Theseum or Thission
(Greek: Θησείο), lying just west of Monastiraki. Thission is home to the ancient
Temple of Hephaestus, standing atop a small hill. This area also has a picturesque
11th-century Byzantine church, as well as a 15th-century Ottoman mosque.
Exarcheia (Greek: Εξάρχεια), located north of Kolonaki, often regarded as the
city's anarchist scene and as a student quarter with cafés, bars and bookshops.
Exarcheia is home to the Athens Polytechnic and the National Archaeological Museum;
it also contains important buildings of several 20th-century styles: Neoclassicism,
Art Deco and Early Modernism (including Bauhaus influences).[citation needed]
Kolonaki (Greek: Κολωνάκι) is the area at the base of Lycabettus hill, full of
boutiques catering to well-heeled customers by day, and bars and more fashionable
restaurants by night, with galleries and museums. This is often regarded as one of
the more prestigious areas of the capital.

The oldest known human presence in Athens is the Cave of Schist, which has been
dated to between the 11th and 7th millennia BC.[6] Athens has been continuously
inhabited for at least 5,000 years (3000 BC).[32][33] By 1400 BC, the settlement
had become an important centre of the Mycenaean civilization, and the Acropolis was
the site of a major Mycenaean fortress, whose remains can be recognised from
sections of the characteristic Cyclopean walls.[34] Unlike other Mycenaean centers,
such as Mycenae and Pylos, it is not known whether Athens suffered destruction in
about 1200 BC, an event often attributed to a Dorian invasion, and the Athenians
always maintained that they were pure Ionians with no Dorian element. However,
Athens, like many other Bronze Age settlements, went into economic decline for
around 150 years afterwards.

foundations for Western civilization. The playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles and

Euripides flourished in Athens during this time, as did the historians Herodotus
and Thucydides, the physician Hippocrates, and the philosopher Socrates. Guided by
Pericles, who promoted the arts and fostered democracy, Athens embarked on an
ambitious building program that saw the construction of the Acropolis of Athens
(including the Parthenon), as well as empire-building via the Delian League.
Originally intended as an association of Greek city-states to continue the fight
against the Persians, the league soon turned into a vehicle for Athens's own
imperial ambitions. The resulting tensions brought about the Peloponnesian War
(431–404 BC), in which Athens was defeated by its rival Sparta.

By the mid-4th century BC, the northern Greek kingdom of Macedon was becoming
dominant in Athenian affairs. In 338 BC the armies of Philip II defeated an
alliance of some of the Greek city-states including Athens and Thebes at the Battle
of Chaeronea, effectively ending Athenian independence. Later, under Rome, Athens
was given the status of a free city because of its widely admired schools. The
Roman emperor Hadrian, in the 2nd century AD, ordered the construction of a
library, a gymnasium, an aqueduct which is still in use, several temples and
sanctuaries, a bridge and financed the completion of the Temple of Olympian Zeus.

By the end of Late Antiquity, Athens had shrunk due to sacks by the Herulians,
Visigoths, and Early Slavs which caused massive destruction in the city. In this
era, the first Christian churches were built in Athens, and the Parthenon and other
temples were converted into churches. Athens expanded its settlement in the second
half of the Middle Byzantine Period, in the 9th to 10th centuries AD, and was
relatively prosperous during the Crusades, benefiting from Italian trade. After the
Fourth Crusade the Duchy of Athens was established. In 1458, it was conquered by
the Ottoman Empire and entered a long period of decline.

Following the Greek War of Independence and the establishment of the Greek Kingdom,
Athens was chosen as the capital of the newly independent Greek state in 1834,
largely because of historical and sentimental reasons. At the time, after the
extensive destruction it had suffered during the war of independence, it was
reduced to a town of about 4,000 people (less than half its earlier population) in
a loose swarm of houses along the foot of the Acropolis. The first King of Greece,
Otto of Bavaria, commissioned the architects Stamatios Kleanthis and Eduard
Schaubert to design a modern city plan fit for the capital of a state.

The first modern city plan consisted of a triangle defined by the Acropolis, the
ancient cemetery of Kerameikos and the new palace of the Bavarian king (now housing
the Greek Parliament), so as to highlight the continuity between modern and ancient
Athens. Neoclassicism, the international style of this epoch, was the architectural
style through which Bavarian, French and Greek architects such as
Hansen, Klenze, Boulanger or Kaftantzoglou designed the first important public
buildings of the new capital. In 1896, Athens hosted the first modern Olympic
Games. During the 1920s a number of Greek refugees, expelled fr
The Municipality of Athens, the City Centre of the Athens Urban Area, is divided
into several districts: Omonoia, Syntagma, Exarcheia, Agios Nikolaos, Neapolis,
Lykavittos, Lofos Strefi, Lofos Finopoulou, Lofos Filopappou, Pedion Areos,
Metaxourgeio, Aghios Kostantinos, Larissa Station, Kerameikos, Psiri, Monastiraki,
Gazi, Thission, Kapnikarea, Aghia Irini, Aerides, Anafiotika, Plaka, Acropolis,
Pnyka, Makrygianni, Lofos Ardittou, Zappeion, Aghios Spyridon, Pangrati, Kolonaki,
Dexameni, Evaggelismos, Gouva, Aghios Ioannis, Neos Kosmos, Koukaki, Kynosargous,
Fix, Ano Petralona, Kato Petralona, Rouf, Votanikos, Profitis Daniil, Akadimia
Platonos, Kolonos, Kolokynthou, Attikis Square, Lofos Skouze, Sepolia, Kypseli,
Aghios Meletios, Nea Kypseli, Gyzi, Polygono, Ampelokipoi, Panormou-Gerokomeio,
Pentagono, Ellinorosson, Nea Filothei, Ano Kypseli, Tourkovounia-Lofos Patatsou,
Lofos Elikonos, Koliatsou, Thymarakia, Kato Patisia, Treis Gefyres, Aghios
Eleftherios, Ano Patisia, Kypriadou, Menidi, Prompona, Aghios Panteleimonas,
Pangrati, Goudi, Vyronas and Ilisia.

Omonoia, Omonoia Square, (Greek: Πλατεία Ομονοίας) is the oldest square in Athens.
It is surrounded by hotels and fast food outlets, and
Iron Age burials, in the Kerameikos and other locations, are often richly provided
for and demonstrate that from 900 BC onwards Athens was one of the leading centres
of trade and prosperity in the region.[35] The leading position of Athens may well
have resulted from its central location in the Greek world, its secure stronghold
on the Acropolis and its access to the sea, which gave it a natural advantage over
inland rivals such as Thebes and Sparta.

Delian League, under the leadership of Athens before the Peloponnesian War in 431
BC
By the 6th century BC, widespread social unrest led to the reforms of Solon. These
would pave the way for the eventual introduction of democracy by Cleisthenes in 508
BC. Athens had by this time become a significant naval power with a large fleet,
and helped the rebellion of the Ionian cities against Persian rule. In the ensuing
Greco-Persian Wars Athens, together with Sparta, led the coalition of Greek states
that would eventually repel the Persians, defeating them decisively at Marathon in
490 BC, and crucially at Salamis in 480 BC. However, this did not prevent Athens
from being captured and sacked twice by the Persians within one year, after a
heroic but ultimately failed resistance at Thermopylae by Spartans and other Greeks
led by King Leonidas,[36] after both Boeotia and Attica fell to the Persians.

The decades that followed became known as the Golden Age of Athenian democracy,
during which time Athens became the leading city of Ancient Greece, with its
cultural achievements laying the
l as Athens's "Gay village". The metro's expansion to the western suburbs of the
city has brought easier access to the area since spring 2007, as the line 3 now
stops at Gazi (Kerameikos station).
Syntagma, Syntagma Square, (Greek: Σύνταγμα/Constitution Square), is the capital's
central and largest square, lying adjacent to the Greek Parliament (the former
Royal Palace) and the city's most notable hotels. Ermou Street, an approximately
one-kilometre-long (5⁄8-mile) pedestrian road connecting Syntagma Square to
Monastiraki, is a consumer paradise for both Athenians and tourists. Complete with
fashion shops and shopping centres promoting most international brands, it now
finds itself in the top five most expensive shop