The Holy Mount Athos is located in Greece, more exactly said in the geographic district of Macedonia (not to confuse with the autonomous state) and there in the governmental district Halkidiki. That peninsula in the northern Aegean Sea forms from the top seen the picture of a hand or also a trident which stings in the sea. In any case one speaks about the Halkidiki generally of a palm and three fingers.

The eastern of these fingers is called Athos, Mount Athos or Holy Mount (Agion Oros). The peninsula received the name from the mountain with the same name, which towers at the south point majestically 2.033 meters high from the Aegean Sea. The finger is about 60 kilometers long and up to 12 kilometers wide.

The Theocratic Republic Athos takes the biggest part of the peninsula finger, nevertheless count also some locations geographically among them, which lie before the austerely guarded land border and are accessible therefore to each. Above all Ouranoupoli is to be mentioned. A little harbour town from which the liners go to the port of Dafni, the entry point of the monk's republic.

By the legend the mountain should have originated when the sea god Poseidon has flung a gigantic cliff lump against thracic cyclopses during a fight of the giants and has buried under this. But as with the mythology is in such a way, there is also the variant that the giant Athos should have thrown once the mighty marble mountain against Poseidon.