The site of the Battle of Thermopylae is in modern Greece. Thermopylae is a narrow coastal pass in central Greece, near the present-day town of Kamena Vourla and the Gulf of Maliakos.
The name Thermopylae means “hot gates,” referring to the hot springs in the area. In 480 BC, the pass was much narrower than it is today because the shoreline has changed through centuries of sediment deposited in the gulf. That geography made it a natural defensive position.
Greek forces led by the Spartan king Leonidas used the pass to delay the invading army of Xerxes I. The battle ended in a Persian victory, but the resistance became one of the best-known episodes of the Greco-Persian Wars. A modern monument at Thermopylae commemorates Leonidas and the defenders.
Readers sometimes confuse the ancient battlefield with later battles fought at the same location. Thermopylae was also the scene of conflicts in later Greek and Roman history, but the famous battle involving Leonidas took place during the Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC.