Greek Myths Codexery

Mount Olympus

Home of the Greek gods and Greece's highest peak.

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Mount Olympus

via Wikipedia: Mount Olympus · see source

Where it is

Street map of the area around Mount Olympus; the red dot marks 40°05′10″N 22°21′32″E
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors

Coordinates: 40°05′10″N 22°21′32″E (40.0860, 22.3590) · Open in OpenStreetMap

Coordinates and connected clubs: the infobox of Wikipedia: Mount Olympus (CC BY-SA 4.0). Map: drawn by Codexery from OpenStreetMap tiles.

Its highest peak, Mytikas, rises to 2917.727 m and is the highest peak in Greece.[1] Situated on the border dividing Thessaly and Macedonia, the large massif of Mount Olympus lies near the Thermaic Gulf of the Aegean Sea in Greece.[1]

Key facts and history

During the Ottoman Empire the mountain was a hiding place and base of operations for klephts and armatoloi.[2] The Greek Civil War (1946–49) started there, in Litochoro.[2] Greece's very first National Park was established on this mountain in 1938.[3] The broader Mount Olympus region gained UNESCO World Heritage status as a mixed site in July 2026.[4]

Sedimentary rock that originally formed in a shallow sea some 200 million years ago now constitutes Mount Olympus.[5] Plateaus and depressions on Olympus were created by glaciers that covered the mountain approximately one million years ago.[5] Kara Michalis established the second armatoliki on Olympus in the year 1489.[2] Between 1941 and 1944, during the German Occupation, Olympus served as a key hub for the Greek Resistance.[2]

What the cited sources add

The NASA account states that Olympus is the highest peak in Greece at 9,570 feet (2,917 meters) and recalls its name in classical Greek means "the luminous one"[6] Nachmani's account notes that in March 1946, ELAS guerillas attacked a police station in the village of Litochoro killing its occupants, an event that signaled the beginning of the third round.[7] The same source reports that without Tito’s support, the communist forces suffered a defeat three months later in the last battles of the DSE on Greek soil.[7] According to the Mountain Weather Forecasts site, winter temperatures average −5 °C and summer temperatures average 10 °C.[8]

That same source reports that average yearly precipitation ranges from 149 cm at Prionia to 170 cm at Aghios Antonios.[8]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Mount Olympus" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Mount Olympus", Encyclopædia Britannica; Kakissis, "Summit of the gods", The Boston Globe, 17 July 2004; Ampatzidis, "Revisiting the determination of Mount Olympus Height (Greece)", Journal of Mountain Science, 1 April 2023, p. 1026–1034; "Mount Olympus", NASA, 23 March 2008; "Measuring the height of Mt. Olympus, a century later", Kathimerini, 30 January 2024; "Europe Ultra-Prominences", peaklist.org (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Mount Olympus" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Nachmani, "The Greek Civil War, 1946–1949", ORIGINS project of the History Departments at The Ohio State University and Miami University, 2016 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Mount Olympus" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "We tasted mountain tea grown by women on Mount Olympus", 30 September 2021 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Mount Olympus" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Mount Olympus", NASA, 23 March 2008; "Mount Olympus and D-Day beaches added to UNESCO World Heritage List", Euronews, 26 July 2026; Smith, "‘No time to waste’: Greece bids for Mount Olympus to be included on Unesco list of world heritage sites", The Guardian, 25 July 2026; Tong-Hyung, "UNESCO adds France’s D-Day landing beaches, Greece’s Mount Olympus to World Heritage List", Associated Press, 26 July 2026 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Mount Olympus" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Mount Olympus", NASA, 23 March 2008 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  6. "Mount Olympus", NASA, 23 March 2008. facts only, no text reused. nasa.gov
  7. Nachmani, "The Greek Civil War, 1946–1949", ORIGINS project of the History Departments at The Ohio State University and Miami University, 2016. facts only, no text reused. origins.osu.edu
  8. Wikipedia, "Mount Olympus" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Detailed weather forecast for different altitudes and times of the day", Mountain Weather Forecasts (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Mount Olympus (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

More in Greek Myths

The TitansThetisRhea (mythology)Psamathe (Nereid)ProteusPan (god)NemesisLetoHeliosCronusZeusHera

Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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