Mount Olympus
The highest mountain in Greece and mythological home of the twelve Olympian gods, whose snow-covered peak was believed to pierce the boundary between earth and heaven.
The Story of Mount Olympus
Mount Olympus rises 2,917 metres in northern Greece on the border of Thessaly and Macedonia, its summit Mytikas often shrouded in cloud. The Greeks believed the twelve major gods — Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Hermes, and either Hestia or Dionysus — held court in golden palaces built by Hephaestus on its peak. Homer described it as a place where no wind blows, no rain falls, and no snow settles, bathed in eternal sunlight. The Muses danced on its lower slopes. After the Titanomachy, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades divided the cosmos by lot: Zeus took the sky, Poseidon the sea, and Hades the Underworld, while Olympus and the earth were shared. The Aloadae giants, Otus and Ephialtes, once attempted to storm Olympus by stacking Mount Pelion on Mount Ossa.
Symbols
Fun Fact
Mount Olympus wasn't climbed until 1913 — making it one of the last major European peaks to be summited. The ancient Greeks never attempted it, considering the mountain inviolable. The word "Olympian" now means both "godlike" and "athletic" because the ancient Olympics at Olympia (a different place entirely) were sacred to Zeus of Olympus. The Olympic rings, the IOC, and every gold medal all trace their authority to this single mountain.
Words We Inherited
English words and phrases that trace back to this myth. See our full guide to English words from Greek mythology.
Explore Further
Olympus
🏛 placeHome of the gods
The highest mountain in Greece and the mythological home of the twelve Olympian gods. Olympus was imagined as a paradise above the clouds.
Mount Ossa
🏛 placemountain, Thessaly
A mountain in Thessaly that the Giants stacked beneath Pelion in their attempt to storm the heavens and overthrow the Olympian gods.
Mount Ida
🏛 placeMountain above Troy where gods watched the war
Mount Ida near Troy was the mountain from which the gods observed the Trojan War and where Paris judged the beauty contest between Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite.
Ida
🏛 placegeography
A name given to sacred mountains in both Crete and the Troad, sites of divine birth and the Judgment of Paris.
Mount Parnassus
🏛 placeMountain of Apollo and the Muses
Mount Parnassus was the mountain above Delphi sacred to Apollo and the Muses — the symbolic home of poetry, music, and artistic inspiration.
Mount Pelion
🏛 placemountain, Thessaly
A forested mountain in Thessaly, home of the wise Centaur Chiron and the site of the fateful wedding of Peleus and Thetis.
Meroe
🏛 placegeography
A distant African kingdom mentioned in Greek mythology as the land at the source of the Nile, associated with the Ethiopians.
Pieria
🏛 placeSacred geography
The region at the foot of Mount Olympus sacred to the Muses, who were sometimes called the Pierides
Pelion
🏛 placeGeography
A forested mountain in Thessaly, home of the centaur Chiron and the site where the Argo was built
Hyperborea
🏛 placeMythical paradise beyond the north wind
Hyperborea was a legendary land of perpetual sunshine and plenty beyond the north wind, where people lived in bliss for a thousand years.
Arges
🏛 placegeography
The Argolid plain dominated by the city of Argos, one of the oldest and most mythologically saturated regions of Greece.
Jupiter
⚡ godKing of gods, sky, thunder
Supreme deity of the Roman pantheon, equivalent to the Greek Zeus, ruling over gods and mortals from the heavens