The history of Greece encompasses the history of the territory of the modern nation-state of Greece as well as that of the Greek people and the areas they inhabited and ruled historically. The scope of Greek habitation and rule has varied throughout the ages and as a result, the history of Greece is similarly elastic in what it includes. Generally, the history of Greece is divided into the following periods:

Paleolithic Greece starting c. 3.3 million years ago and ending in 13,000 BC. Significant geomorphological and climatic changes were noted in the modern Greek area which were definitive for the fauna and flora as well as the survival of the Homo sapiens in the region.

Mesolithic Greece starting in 13,000 BC and ending in 7000 BC, it was a period of long and slow development of the primitive human "proto-communities".

Neolithic Greece; covering a period beginning with the establishment of agricultural societies in 7000 BC and ending in c. 3200 – c. 3100 BC. It was a vital part of the early history of Greece because it was the base for the early Bronze Age civilizations. The first organized communities were developed and basic art became more advanced.

Ancient Greece usually encompasses Greek antiquity, while part of the region's late prehistory (Late Bronze Age) is also considered part of it:

Bronze Age (Cycladic culture, Minoan and Helladic); chronology covering a period beginning with the transition to a metal-based economy in 3200/3100 BC during the Eutresis culture and Korakou culture, Cycladic culture with its special figurines, Europe's first real civilization (Minoan civilization), Tiryns culture, to the rise and fall of the Mycenaean Greek palaces in the Late Bronze Age collapse. Spans roughly five centuries (1600–1100 BC).

Greek Dark Ages (or Iron Age, Homeric Age), 1100–800 BC

Archaic period, 800–490 BC

Classical period 490–323 BC

Hellenistic period, 323–146 BC

Roman Greece; covering a period from the Roman conquest of Greece in 146 BC – 324 AD

Byzantine Greece; covering a period from the establishment of the capital city of Byzantium, Constantinople, in 324 until the fall of Constantinople in 1453

Frankish/Latin Greece; (including the Venetian possessions) covering a period from the Fourth Crusade (1204) to 1797, year of disestablishment of the Venetian Republic

Ottoman Greece; covering the period from 1453 until the Greek Revolution of 1821

Modern Greece; covering the period from 1821 to present

At its cultural and geographical peak, Greek civilization spread from Egypt all the way to the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan. Since then, Greek minorities have remained in former Greek territories (e.g. Turkey, Albania, Italy, Libya, Levant, Armenia, Georgia) and Greek emigrants have assimilated into differing societies across the globe (e.g. North America, Australia, Northern Europe, South Africa). At present, most Greeks live in the modern states of Greece (independent since 1821) and cyprus