It was the most prominent region in Ancient Greece, specifically during the Golden Age of Athens in the classical period.

Ancient Attica (the classical Athens city-state) was divided into demoi, or municipalities, from the reform of Cleisthenes in 508/7 BC, grouped into three zones: urban (astu) in the region of Athens main town, and Piraeus (the port), coastal (paralia) along the coastline, and inland (mesogeia) in the interior.

According to the Roman geographer Pausanias, the place was originally named Actaea, but was later renamed in the honour of Atthis, daughter of king Cranaus of Athens.

It is naturally divided to the north from Boeotia by the 10 mi (16 km) long Cithaeron and Parnes mountain ranges.

Four mountains — Aigaleo, Parnitha, Penteli and Hymettus (clockwise from the southwest) — delineate the hilly plain on which the Athens urban area now spreads.

The plain is pockmarked by a plethora of semi-continuous hills, the most notable ones being the Tourkovounia, Lykavittos, the Acropolis of Athens itself and Philopappou.

The Kifisos is the longest river in Attica, which starts from the foothills of mount Parnitha near Varibobi, crosses the Athenian plain and empties into the delta of Faliro east of the port of Piraeus.

According to Plato, Attica's ancient boundaries were fixed by the Isthmus, and, toward the continent, they extended as far as the heights of Cithaeron and Parnes.

The traditions current in the classical period recounted that, during the Greek Dark Ages, Attica had become the refuge of the Ionians, who belonged to a tribe from the northern Peloponnese.

Many Ionians later left Attica to colonize the Aegean coast of Asia Minor and to create the twelve cities of Ionia.

[3] According to tradition, Attica comprised twelve small communities during the reign of Cecrops, the legendary Ionian king of Athens.

Strabo assigns these the names of Cecropia, Tetrapolis, Epacria, Decelea, Eleusis, Aphidna, Thoricus, Brauron, Cytherus, Sphettus, Cephisia, and possibly Phaleron.

Only after Peisistratos's tyranny and the reforms implemented by Cleisthenes did the local communities lose their independence and succumb to the central government in Athens.

The worship of the goddesses Demeter and Cora, beginning in the Mycenaean period, continued until the late years of antiquity.

In the Roman period, the Scandinavian Heruli tribe raided Athens and Attica in 267 AD, destroying most of the city and laying waste to the countryside.

The great monastery of Dafni, that was built under Justinian I's rule, is an isolated case that does not signify a widespread development of Attica during the Byzantine period.

From 1834, Athens was made the new Greek capital (moved from Nafplio in Argolis), which caused the gradual repopulation of Attica by other people around Greece.