Every city of Central and South Asia that became Greek between the Persian deportations and the Arab conquest, every bilingual city where Greek was spoken beside Bactrian, Sogdian, Gandhari or another language, and the one later Greek town: when Greek came, how, and when its last Greek speakers were gone. With the Greeks and Yavanas who lived in other people’s towns, and the Greek communities from the merchants of Bengal to the deportees of Kazakhstan, down to today.
The area: Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India; Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Xinjiang, Asian Russia and Mongolia were searched too. The 15 Greek cities of Iran, among them Hecatompylos, Calliope and Charis, are counted in Greek Cities in Present-Day West Asia and drawn here as grey rings. One standard, as in the other pages: a Greek community counts whatever its home language, and every city is placed on one ladder of evidence. Most of these cities are known from a single text; they are included, drawn hollow, and the doubt is stated in each record. The Yavanas of the Indian inscriptions are shown as presence points, not cities.
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. The fourth tab follows the fade after the last Greek kings, to the Arab conquest of Sindh (711–712). Or drag the year slider, or press Play, to see which cities had Greek speakers in any year from 500 BC to today. Hollow dots are doubtful, and dashed rings can be placed only within their region. Small grey rings are the Greek cities of Iran, counted in Greek Cities in Present-Day West Asia; grey squares are garrisons, traders and Yavana donors in other people’s towns, shown in the periods they belong to (see Greeks in other people’s towns). Use the zoom buttons for the crowded areas. Hover or tap a dot for its name; select it for the full record and, for some cities, their stories.
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Select a row for the full record. ? after a name: doubtful as a Greek city or as a site. The small number after a name is its rung of evidence: 1, Greek institutions or Greek written by its people in quantity; 2, two weaker strands; 3, one strand. ° many of its Greeks spoke another language at home. + Greek speakers there again later, after a gap (the record gives the phases). Grey names under Today are proposed sites. Dates of fading are approximate, and most are estimates.
The eight images: the overview, one map per period, the rise and fade, the Greek communities from 1713 to today, today’s Central and South Asia, and the list.
A town, not a fort, garrison, trading post or sanctuary, whose residents spoke Greek, or whose Greek community was the town’s majority or about a quarter. Up to the Arab conquest (Sindh 711–712): a foundation of Alexander or a later Greek king that an early author records; a town that an early text calls Greek or a city of the Yonas; or a town with Greek institutions, or Greek written by its own people. After it, to 1991, a later town counts if its Greek community was the majority or about a quarter. Greek used only by officials, soldiers, traders, a court or on coins does not count.
When the place became Greek: its foundation for a royal foundation, by the ancient date where there is one and by the archaeology otherwise; for the deportees, their settlement; for a native town, the first evidence of Greek-speaking residents; for the later town, the year the Greeks came. Where a town is known only from a text, 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: Bactrian, Sogdian, Arachosian, Gandhari or another Indian language. Most of Alexander’s foundations were built on or beside native towns, and their Greek settlers lived beside the old townspeople; where the sources show that, the city is bilingual. A bilingual city has its own colour, and its dates are when Greek was spoken there.
Garrisons, forts, traders, the deported Barcaeans and the Yavana donors of the Indian cave inscriptions are presence points, not cities: Greek was not a main language of the town, or the place was not a town. They are drawn as grey squares in the periods they belong to and listed, with the evidence for each, under Greeks in other people’s towns.
The 15 Greek cities of Iran, among them Hecatompylos, Calliope, Charis and the cities of Sistan, are counted once, in Greek Cities in Present-Day West Asia, and drawn here as grey rings. Each city is counted on one page only, by the country its site lies in today.
Research by region (Margiana, Areia and the south; Bactria; Sogdiana and the Jaxartes; the Paropamisadae, Swat and Taxila; the Punjab, Sindh and India), and one more on the later Greeks; then three checks: the ends, the close calls, and coverage, which also searched Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Xinjiang, Asian Russia and Mongolia. A second round checked the statements stated from memory, the coverage, the seats and populations of today, the stories and 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 presence points, the year-by-year series, the seats on the sites, the stories, and the later Greeks (timeline, communities, census figures, events).
Sources: Arrian, Anabasis; Quintus Curtius; Strabo, books 11 and 15; Justin; Isidore of Charax, Parthian Stations; Ptolemy, Geography; Stephanus of Byzantium; Pliny, book 6; the Milindapañha; G. M. Cohen, The Hellenistic Settlements in the East from Armenia and Mesopotamia to Bactria and India (2013); W. W. Tarn, The Greeks in Bactria and India (1938); P. M. Fraser, Cities of Alexander the Great (1996); G. Rougemont, Inscriptions grecques d’Iran et d’Asie centrale (2012); the excavation reports of Ai Khanoum, Kandahar, Barikot and Taxila; the Pleiades gazetteer; for the later Greeks, Banglapedia, the Soviet censuses and the Kazakh archives. 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.