How did the geography of Greece play a role in their political structure?

The geography of Greece played a very important role in Greece's ancient political structure. Greece is a very mountainous peninsula. The mountains were very difficult to travel so it acted to separate pockets of people in different areas. The end result of the isolated populations was that the various areas developed independently of one another. This is known as regionalism. As the populations slowly grew, city-states developed that were autonomous of one another. This was...

The geography of Greece played a very important role in Greece's ancient political structure. Greece is a very mountainous peninsula. The mountains were very difficult to travel so it acted to separate pockets of people in different areas. The end result of the isolated populations was that the various areas developed independently of one another. This is known as regionalism. As the populations slowly grew, city-states developed that were autonomous of one another. This was very different than how Egypt developed many centuries earlier.

Another consequence of the barren geography of much of Greece is that farming was difficult. This meant that populations remained relatively small. Representative governments grew in many city-states that otherwise may not have been possible in largely populated states. Athens was able to develop a direct democracy, which would have been very difficult if it had a similar population as Rome.