Britannica Student Encyclopedia - 2010

plow, taming wild horses, and teaching

farmers to yoke oxen. It was also

believed that she invented the flute and

the trumpet.

The city of Athens was associated with

Athena. According to legend, Zeus

decided to give the Greek city to the god

who offered the most useful gift to the

people. Poseidon, the god of the sea,

gave the city a water spring. Athena

struck the ground with her spear and

caused an olive tree to grow. The people

were delighted with this gift. Zeus

awarded the city to Athena. He named it

Athens in her honor.

#More to explore

Ares • Athens • Greece, Ancient

• Mythology • Zeus

Athens

Population

(2001 census),

city, 745,514;

metropolitan

area,

3,187,734

Athens is the capital of Greece, a country

of southern Europe. The city is

located on the Greek mainland. Mountains

surround Athens on three sides.

Athens was the most important of the

city-states of ancient Greece.

Places of Interest

Parts of many ancient buildings still

stand in Athens. On top of a high hill is

an ancient fortress known as the

Acropolis. It once held temples to Athena,

the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom.

The city of Athens was named for

Athena.

Ruins of ancient monuments stand near

modern neighborhoods in the city of Athens,

Greece.

218 Athens BRITANNICA STUDENT ENCYCLOPEDIA

 

Economy

Athens is the main center in Greece for

business, trade, and transportation. The

city has a busy port on a bay of the

Aegean Sea. Most of Greece’s manufactured

goods are made in Athens. Some

of the main factories process food and

beverages. Other factories make cloth,

soap, chemicals, pottery, ships, and cars.

Tourism and publishing also are major

industries.

History

People have lived in the Athens area for

at least 5,000 years. The earliest surviving

buildings date from about 1200 BC.

Ancient Greece was made up of many

independent city-states. Athens reached

its peak as one of the most powerful

city-states in the 400s BC. The leader of

Athens during that period was Pericles.

He helped develop the form of government

known as democracy. Athens also

thrived in the 400s BC as a center of

culture and learning. The city was home

to great playwrights, historians, and

scholars.

After Athens lost a war in 404 BC, its

power began to decline. Later the Macedonians

and then the Romans controlled

the city.

The Turkish Ottoman Empire took control

of Athens in AD 1456. The Turks

ruled the city until 1833. In that year

Greece became an independent country,

with Athens as its capital. In the second

half of the 1900s the city grew rapidly.

In 2004 Athens hosted the Summer

Olympics.

..More to explore

Acropolis • Athena • City-State • Greece

• Greece, Ancient

Athletics

..see Track and Field.

Atlanta

Population

(2000 census),

city, 416,474;

(2007 estimate)

519,145

Atlanta is the capital and largest city of

the U.S. state of Georgia. It is located

in the foothills of the Blue Ridge

Mountains.

The Fountain of Rings is part of Atlanta’s

Centennial Olympic Park. The park was

built for use during the 1996 Summer

Olympic Games.

BRITANNICA STUDENT ENCYCLOPEDIA Atlanta 219

 

Atlanta is the main trade and transportation

center for the southeastern United

States. The city is also an important

financial center. The U.S. government

has several offices in Atlanta.

The city had its beginnings in 1837.

That year the site was selected as the end

stop on a new rail line. A settlement

soon grew up around the site. In 1845 it

was named Atlanta.

During the American CivilWar Atlanta

became a rail center for the Confederate

states. In 1864 Union troops captured

Atlanta and burned most of its buildings.

After the war ended, Atlanta recovered

quickly. The city became the capital

of Georgia in 1868.

In the 1900s Atlanta was the home of

the civil rights leader Martin Luther

King, Jr. It was also the first major

Southern city to elect an African American

man (in 1973) and African American

woman (in 2001) as mayor. The

1996 Summer Olympics were held in

Atlanta.

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest

ocean on Earth, after the Pacific Ocean.

However, the Atlantic drains more of

the world’s land area than any other

ocean. This means that much of the

world’s river water flows into the Atlantic.

The ancient Greeks named the ocean

after Atlas, a character in Greek mythology.

Atlas stood on pillars in the ocean

to hold up the heavens.

Physical Features

The Atlantic Ocean reaches the continents

of Europe and Africa to the east. It

extends to North America and South

America to the west. It also extends from

the Arctic Ocean in the north to Antarctica

in the south. The equator divides

the Atlantic Ocean into parts called the

North Atlantic and the South Atlantic.

The surface area of the Atlantic is about

31,830,000 square miles (82,440,000

square kilometers). This is roughly half

the size of the Pacific Ocean. The Atlantic’s

deepest point, at 27,493 feet (8,380

meters), is the bottom of the Puerto

Rico Trench, north of the island of

Puerto Rico.

Beneath the middle of the Atlantic is a

long, undersea mountain range called

the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Along the ridge,

hot, liquid rock, called magma, rises

from beneath Earth’s crust. The magma