Greece is situated southern of the Balkan Peninsula. Greece is a land of mountains and sea. It is difficult to be far out of range of either, a fact that has had an important influence on the country's economic and historical development. The country is bordered to the west by the Ionian Sea, to the south by the Mediterranean Sea, and to the east by the Aegean Sea. On the north there are the borders from west to east with Albania, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria and Turkey. Greece has more than 2,000 islands it is no accident that Greece has always had a strong nautical tradition. Greece lies at the juncture of Europe, Asia, and Africa. From ancient Greece the modern country inherited a sophisticated culture and a language that has been documented for almost three millennia. Greece is the only country in the world, Greek the only language, and Greeks the only people regularly prefaced by the epithet "modern." References to Greece and Greek usually denote ancient Greece and ancient Greek. Greeks, however, take great pride in their cultural heritage, and the notion of an unbroken continuity between ancient and modern Greece is an essential element in the Greek self-image.