Central Greece includes the southern part of the Greek mainland as well as the offshore island of Euboea. Since 1987, its territory has been divided among the administrative regions of Central Greece and Attica, and the regional unit (former prefecture) of Aetolia-Acarnania in the administrative region of Western Greece.
is a traditional geographic and modern administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thessaly was known as Aeolia (Greek: Αἰολία, Aiolía), and appears thus in Homer’s Odyssey.
Central Greece includes also Thessaly which became part of the modern Greek state in 1881, after four and a half centuries of Ottoman rule. Since 1987 it has formed one of the country’s 13 regions and is further (since the Kallikratis reform of 2010) sub-divided into 5 regional units and 25 municipalities. The capital of the region is Larissa. Thessaly lies in northern Greece and borders the regions of Macedonia on the north, Epirus on the west, Central Greece on the south and the Aegean Sea on the east. The Thessaly region also includes the Sporades islands.