The drachma (Greek: δραχμή [ðraxˈmi]) was the official currency of modern Greece from 1832 until the launch of the euro in 2001.

In 1868, Greece joined the Latin Monetary Union and the drachma became equal in weight and value to the French franc.

In 2002 the drachma ceased to be legal tender after the euro, the monetary unit of the European Union, became Greece's sole currency.

In 1922, the Greek government issued a forced loan in order to finance their growing budget deficit.

On 1 April 1922, the government decreed that half of all bank notes had to be surrendered and exchanged for 6.5% bonds.

During the German–Italian occupation of Greece from 1941 to 1944, catastrophic hyperinflation caused much higher denominations to be issued, culminating in 100,000,000,000-drachma notes in 1944.

On 9 April 1953, in an effort to halt inflation, Greece joined the Bretton Woods system.

[6] On 1 January 2002, the Greek drachma was officially replaced as the circulating currency by the euro, and it has not been legal tender since 1 March 2002.

This design included a soldier standing in front of the flames of the rising phoenix replacing the (royal) coat of arms and the date of the coup d'état, April 21, 1967.

These coins carried the design of the phoenix rising from the flame on the obverse-but now without the soldier, a nod to the "liberalization plan" pursued by Papadopoulos, and used the country's new designation as the "Hellenic Republic", replacing the coins also issued in 1973 as the Kingdom of Greece with King Constantine II's portrait.

Starting in 1982, all coins now bore the inscription drachmes rather than the katharevousa drachmai type, reflecting the resolution of the Greek language question.

The transition proved challenging due to the fact that the exchange rate (340.750 to 1 euro) included lepta (despite the fact that lepta were not used in physical transactions) and that the 20- and 50-cent coins (also called "lepta"), which were very similar in size and composition (Nordic Gold as opposed to 92% copper 6% nickel 2% aluminium) to the 20-, 50- and 100-drachma coins, were initially deemed worthless (alluding to the pp of their drachma predecessors), allowing vendors to take advantage of psychological pricing.

Banknotes in circulation at the time of the adoption of the euro[12] were A currency symbol consisting of a cursive delta and rho was created in 1999, but was never used in practice.

[14] Several parties during the Greek government-debt crisis proposed leaving the Euro and reinstating the Drachma as Greece's currency.