The Attica region, a roughly triangular peninsula, with the most important city both in (classical) antiquity and now Athens, is nowadays the economic engine of Greece. The region started to act as a unit when the most important Mycenean centers (Athens, Eleusis, Sounion, Rhamnous) were violently united by Athens from the geometric period (900-800 BC). In mythology this union is reflected in the various wars fought by the mythical hero Theseus against, among others, King Eumolpos of Eleusis and against his second cousins ​​the Pallantids. Pausanias mentions how Theseus, after the forced unification of Attica, built a palace on the acropolis, and founded a cult for Aphrodite Pandemos (of the whole people) and Peitho (conviction) on the south slope of the acropolis. The island of Salamis was a controversial area for a long time: traditionally belonging to Megara, the Athenians fought for years for its possession, until finally the legislator Solon managed to incorporate Salamis definitively for the Athenians around 600 B.C. The main mountains of Attica are the Pentelikon Mountains, known in ancient times for its marble, the Parnes Mountains and the Hymettos Mountains.

In ancient times, the Megarid was regarded as a separate region, which was often hostile to Attica. The reason that Pausanias combines the region with his description of the already very robust description of Attica is therefore remarkable. A possible explanation for this lies in the fact that Homer also includes Attica and the Megarid in his ship catalog (with the assembled Greek troops who had gone to Troy), as well as the later separate and competing regions of Corinthia and Argolis. The division into 10 books as we now have in Pausanias, is therefore possible to connect with the description at Homer, which Pausanias highly admires. The number of cities described by Pausanias is small.