Abstract: The term “Hellas” (Greece) means the place where Greeks live. Before the Greeks arrived, there was no place called “Greece” in the south of ancient Balkans Peninsula. Since the end of third millennium B.C., groups of Greeks have started migrating to the area and assimilated into the community of Pelasgians who had already settled there. Due to the continuous migration of Greeks, the Peninsula experienced the expansion of Greece accompanied by shrink of Pelasgia for over a thousand years. In the early stage of the archaic age, embryonic forms of geographic, linguistic, ethnic and cultural connotations of Greece were generated. Although the terms like “Great Greece” and “Greek World” came into being due to the expansion of Greek population and territory over hundreds of years afterwards till the modern times, the connotation and territory of Greece had already been solidly acknowledged. The term “Graecia” is a misapprehension on Greece by the ancient Romans. In fact, Greek region had been ruled by alien races for a long time in history, and there was no such a state named “Greece” until it declared independence in 1822. However, with the Greek peninsula as its core region, the “Hellas” (Greece) with its history and culture has truly and undeniably been there all the time.

Key words: Hellas (Greece), Greek, Pelasgia, Pelasgians, Greek as a state