The article examines inter-municipal commuting flows in Greece, collected via
the 2001 Census, and delineates the country’s labor market areas (LMAs). It finds
that the LMAs of Athens (3.9 million inhabitants) and Thessaloniki (1.1 million)
exceed the homonymous urban-planning complexes by 8 and 15 times, respectively.
These LMAs, along with the LMAs of Patras (245 thousand) and Iraklion
(233 thousand), host about half the country’s population. Another thirty-eight
clusters of municipalities and eight self-contained municipalities of 20-184 thousand
inhabitants jointly host a quarter of the country’s population. The picture
is complemented by the presence of ten clusters of municipalities and 607 selfcontained
municipalities with smaller populations. Overall, the article advances
our understanding of how the country functions at the sub-national level.