The Pindus mountain range is known colloquially as the spine of Greece.
The Pindus runs roughly north to south through much of mainland Greece, extending from near the Greek-Albanian border through Epirus, Macedonia, Thessaly, and central Greece toward the northern Peloponnese. Its long alignment explains the “spine” nickname: it forms the country’s principal mountainous backbone rather than referring to one isolated summit.
The range is about 160 kilometres long and reaches 2,637 metres at Mount Smolikas, Greece’s second-highest mountain after Mount Olympus. Geologically, the Pindus is an extension of the Dinaric Alps, which dominate the western Balkans. Olympus is a separate mountain massif, famous in Greek mythology and higher than Smolikas; Taygetus lies in the southern Peloponnese, while the Rhodope Mountains are farther north. Pindus and Pindos are both common English forms of the name.