Every city around the Black Sea that became Greek between the first Milesian colonies and the Ottoman conquest, every bilingual city where Greek was spoken beside Thracian, Sarmatian, Gothic, Laz, Armenian or Turkish, and the later Greek towns of the sultans and the tsars: when Greek came, how, and when its last Greek speakers were gone. And the Greek communities that lived on after the conquest, in their own towns and in other people’s, down to today.
The area: the coasts of Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, Georgia and Turkey, the Bosporus, the Kuban and the Don, and inland Pontus, Paphlagonia, Bithynia and north-eastern Anatolia. The 66 cities in Turkey come from Greek Cities in Turkey, which covers the rest of Anatolia. Where the evidence is thin, a city is included and drawn hollow, and the doubt is stated in its record. The Crimea and Sevastopol are shown as Ukraine’s, annexed by Russia in 2014 (not recognised by most UN members); Abkhazia as Georgia’s, outside its government’s control since 1993.
Pick a period to see the cities that became Greek or bilingual in it, in colour; the cities that had Greek speakers before it, or again later in it, are grey, and a dark ring marks a city whose last Greek speakers were gone by the end of the period. Or drag the year slider, or press Play, to see which cities had Greek speakers in any year from 700 BC to today. Hollow dots are doubtful, and dashed rings can be placed only within their region. Small grey rings are Greek cities of the Turkey set outside this area; grey squares are Greek communities in towns of other languages (see After the conquest). Use the zoom buttons for the crowded coasts. Hover or tap a dot for its name; select it for the full record and, for some cities, their stories.
A king who lived as a Greek, a tyrant who studied with Plato, Xenophon’s ten thousand at the sea, Ovid in exile, a siege and a plague, the fall of Trebizond, miners, a Greek battalion and a port on the Danube: things that happened in these cities, from the ancient texts, the chronicles and the archives.
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Select a row for the full record. ? after a name: doubtful as a Greek city or as a site. † a Greek city with a bilingual period. ° many of its Greeks spoke Turkish (Urum). * its Greek speakers were Muslims. + Greek speakers there again later, after a gap (the record gives the phases). ‡ in the Crimea or another area held by Russia, or in Abkhazia. Grey names under Today are villages. Dates of fading are approximate.
The eleven images: the overview, one map per period, the rise and fade, the Greek communities after the conquest, today’s Black Sea, and the list.
A town, not a trading post, fort or sanctuary, whose residents spoke Greek. Up to the Ottoman conquest (1453 on the Bosporus and in Bulgaria, 1461 at Trebizond, 1475 in the Crimea): a polis in the Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis; a town that an early author calls Greek (Pseudo-Scylax, Pseudo-Scymnus, Strabo, Arrian); a town with Greek civic coins or institutions; or a see whose Christians spoke Greek. After the conquest, a later town counts if a count or a reliable description shows Greek as its majority language, or as about a quarter or more beside one other main language; a district seat in an overwhelmingly Greek-speaking district counts, as doubtful, when nothing describes the town itself. Language counts, not name or faith: Catherine II’s towns with Greek names (Odessa, Kherson, Sevastopol, Simferopol) are left out where the Greeks were a minority, Turkish-speaking Greeks (Urum) do not make a town Greek, and Greek-speaking Muslims (Of) do. Greek used only by officials, soldiers, traders or a court does not count.
When the place became Greek: its foundation for a Greek foundation, by the ancient date where there is one (many are Eusebius’ and doubted) and by the archaeology otherwise; for a native town or a see, the first evidence of Greek-speaking residents; for a later town, the year it became a Greek or bilingual town. Where a town is known only from texts, the date is an estimate from its context, and the record says so.
A bilingual city had Greek speakers, but another main language lived on beside Greek: Thracian at Deultum and Pyrgos, Sarmatian at Tanais, Gothic at Theodoro, Laz at Petra, Armenian at Satala, Keltzene and Theodosiopolis, Turkish at Argyroupolis and Platana. A bilingual city has its own colour, and its dates are when Greek was spoken there. A Greek city that had a second main language for a time is marked †.
The town on the site is the one whose built-up area covers the ancient city; ruins outside a town count as ruins. A provincial or regional seat counts if it stands within 3 km of the city (Erzincan excluded, as in the Turkey set). Populations are the latest official figures (TÜİK, NSI Bulgaria, INS Romania, Ukraine’s last official figures, Rosstat, Geostat).
Eight research batches by region (the west coast; the north-west coast; the Crimea; the Kuban; the Caucasus; and three for Turkey, reusing and checking the 66 records of the Turkey set), then three checks: the ends, the close calls, and coverage. A second round, after the editor’s decisions, lowered the line for the later towns, researched Mariupol and Tsalka, added Burgas, Of, Matsouka and Kalos Limen and the later communities in the ancient cities, and gathered the later Greeks, the stories and today’s seats. A last fact-check went through the cards, the stories and the history of the later Greeks. The identifiers follow the Pleiades gazetteer. Every record keeps its sources and notes, and statements that could not be checked again are marked “unchecked”.
The full table with every field, sources and notes, as a CSV table, as JSON, or as a spreadsheet with the places left out, the Greek villages and other presence points, the year-by-year series, the seats on the sites, the stories, and the later Greeks (timeline, communities, census figures, the exchanges, the Pontus 1916–1923, the Soviet deportations).
Sources: M. H. Hansen and T. H. Nielsen, An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis (2004; the chapter on the Black Sea by A. Avram, J. Hind and G. Tsetskhladze); Herodotus; Pseudo-Scylax; Pseudo-Scymnus; Strabo, books 7, 11 and 12; Arrian, Periplus of the Black Sea; Procopius; Constantine VII, De administrando imperio; A. Bryer and D. Winfield, The Monuments and Topography of the Pontos (1985); H. Lowry on the Ottoman registers of Trabzon; the Russian census of 1897 and the Soviet censuses (Demoscope Weekly); the Ottoman census of 1914 (Karpat 1985); B. Morris and D. Ze’evi (2019); N. Bugay (1996); S. Topalidis; E. Ponomaryova (2014) on Mariupol; A. Aklaev (1988) on Tsalka; the Pleiades gazetteer. Map: Natural Earth; today’s borders dashed.
These calls rest on thin or conflicting evidence. The map, the chart and the list follow the reading shown here; the alternative is given so that readers can weigh it themselves.