Capital city in the context of "Houston"

Athens is the capital and largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica region and is the southernmost capital on the European mainland. With its urban area's population numbering over 3.6 million, it is the eighth-largest urban area in the European Union (EU). The Municipality of Athens (also City of Athens), which constitutes a small administrative unit of the entire urban area, had a population of 643,452 in 2021, within its official limits, and a land area of 38.96 km (15.04 sq mi).

Athens is one of the world's oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning over 3,400 years, and its earliest human presence beginning somewhere between the 11th and 7th millennia BCE. According to Greek mythology the city was named after Athena, the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom, but modern scholars generally agree that the goddess took her name after the city. Classical Athens was one of the most powerful city-states in ancient Greece. It was a centre for democracy, the arts, education and philosophy, and was highly influential throughout the European continent, particularly in Ancient Rome. For this reason it is often regarded as the cradle of Western civilisation and the birthplace of democracy in its own right independently from the rest of Greece.

Attica (/ˈætɪkə/ AT-ih-kə; Greek: Περιφέρεια Αττικής, romanized: Periféria Attikís, [periˈferi.a atiˈcis]) is an administrative region of Greece that encompasses the entire Athens metropolitan area, the core city of which is the country's capital and largest city, Athens. The region is coextensive with the former Attica Prefecture of Central Greece and covers a greater area than the historical region of Attica.

A province is an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman provincia, which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outside Italy. The term province has since been adopted by many countries. In some countries with no actual provinces, "the provinces" is a metaphorical term meaning "outside the capital city".

While some provinces were produced artificially by colonial powers, others were formed around local groups with their own ethnic identities. Many have their own powers independent of central or federal authority, especially in Canada and Pakistan. In other countries, like China or France, provinces are the creation of central government, with very little autonomy.

A seat of government is a "building, complex of buildings or the city from which a government exercises its authority". When referring to a city, the seat of government is generally the capital of the state or administrative entity in question, although there are exceptions. Particular terms for the seat of certain territorial subdivisions are administrative centre, county seat (common in the United States), county town (United Kingdom and Ireland), or barrio-pueblo (Puerto Rico), among others; buildings that may function as seats of government include official residences, supreme court buildings, city or town halls, administrative or executive buildings, shire or county halls, legislative buildings, and barangay halls.

Some countries can be considered to have multiple capitals. In some cases, one city is the capital for some purposes, and one or more others are capital for other purposes, without any being considered an official capital in preference to the others. There are also cases where there is a single legally defined capital, but one or more other cities operate as the seat of government of some or all parts of the national government; in these situations, sources may disagree on whether these other cities are considered additional capital cities.

Thessaloniki (/ˌθɛsələˈniːki/; Greek: Θεσσαλονίκη [θesaloˈnici] ; also known by various spellings and names) is a city in northern Greece. The nation's second-largest, with slightly over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, it is the capital of the geographic region of Macedonia, the administrative region of Central Macedonia and the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace. It is also known in Greek as i Symprotévousa, literally "the co-capital", a reference to its historical status as the "co-reigning" city (Symvasilévousa) of the Byzantine Empire alongside Constantinople.

Thessaloniki is located on the Thermaic Gulf, at the northwest corner of the Aegean Sea. It is bounded on the west by the delta of the Axios. The municipality of Thessaloniki, the historical centre, had a population of 319,045 in 2021, while the Thessaloniki metropolitan area had 1,006,112 inhabitants and the greater region had 1,092,919. It is Greece's second major economic, industrial, commercial and political centre, and a major transportation hub for Greece and southeastern Europe, notably through the Port of Thessaloniki. The city is renowned for its festivals, events and vibrant cultural life in general. Events such as the Thessaloniki International Fair and the Thessaloniki International Film Festival are held annually. Thessaloniki was the 2014 European Youth Capital. The city's main university, Aristotle University, is the largest in Greece and the Balkans.

Heraklion, Herakleion (/hɪˈrækliən/ hih-RAK-lee-ən; Greek: Ηράκλειο, Iráklio, pronounced [iˈrakli.o], not to be mistaken with Heracleion, Egypt) or Iraklion, is the largest city and the administrative capital of the island of Crete and capital of Heraklion regional unit. It is the fourth largest city in Greece, and the largest city in the Greek islands, with a municipal population of 179,302 (2021) and 211,370 in its wider metropolitan area, according to the 2011 census.The greater area of Heraklion has been continuously inhabited since at least 7000 BCE, making it one of the oldest inhabited regions in Europe. It is also home to the ancient Knossos Palace, a major center of the Minoan civilization dating back to approximately 2000-1350 BCE, often considered Europe's oldest city. The palace is one of the most significant archaeological sites in Greece, second only to the Parthenon in terms of visitor numbers.

Heraklion was Europe's fastest growing tourism destination for 2017, according to Euromonitor, with an 11.2% growth in international arrivals. According to the ranking, Heraklion was ranked as the 20th most visited region in Europe, as the 66th area on the planet and as the 2nd in Greece for the year 2017, with 3.2 million visitors and the 19th in Europe for 2018, with 3.4 million visitors.

A city-state is an independent sovereign city which serves as the center of political, economic, and cultural life over its contiguous territory, as opposed to a regular state or country comprising a capital city and other cities and/or a countryside. City-states have existed in many parts of the world throughout history, including cities such as Rome, Carthage, Athens and Sparta and the Italian city-states during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, such as Florence, Venice, Genoa and Milan.

With the rise of nation states worldwide, there remains some disagreement on the number of modern city-states that still exist; Singapore, Monaco and Vatican City are the candidates most commonly discussed. Out of these, Singapore is the largest and most populous city-state in the world, with full sovereignty, international borders, its own currency, a robust military, and substantial international influence in its own right. The Economist refers to it as the "world's only fully functioning city-state".