603 cities, from Mycenaean Miletus to the fall of Trebizond, each dated from the moment it became Greek: as a colony, a royal or Roman foundation, or a native Anatolian town that turned Greek.
Pick a period to see the cities that became Greek in it, in colour, with the earlier ones in grey. Hover or tap a dot for its name; select it for the full record. Zoom in on the crowded west with the buttons or by double-clicking.
| Greek | Pre-Greek name |
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Select a row for the full record. ? after a name: doubtful as a Greek city or as a site. † a mixed city: Greek beside Aramaic (Syriac) or Armenian. Grey Turkish names are villages.
The sixteen cards for posting: the overview, one map per period, two statistics cards and the list by region.
A self-governing city or bishop’s see, not a village, fort or sanctuary, whose people spoke Greek or came to. The evidence: a polis in the Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis or the Athenian tribute lists, a Hellenistic foundation, Greek civic decrees or coins, a place in Hierocles’ list of cities (c. 527), or a see. The same test applies everywhere, with no special rule for any region: a castle with a settlement but no see and no polis title does not count. The site must lie in present-day Turkey, which includes Eastern Thrace, Imbros, Tenedos and Hatay.
Each city is dated from when it became a Greek city: its foundation for a Greek foundation (the ancient date, or the archaeological one where they differ); for a native town, its first Greek civic evidence. Renamings do not change the date. Many inland towns are dated by their first coins or first bishop, so the inland spread is dated later than it happened.
A city where Greek was one of two main languages, beside Aramaic (Syriac) or Armenian, is included and marked †. This needs positive evidence of a Greek-speaking community: civic coins or inscriptions in Greek, Greek writers or clergy from the city, or Greek settlers. Examples: Edessa, Carrhae, Nisibis, Zeugma, Samosata, Germanikeia, Perrhe, Amida, Satala, Theodosiopolis (Erzurum) after 949, and Keltzene (Erzincan), where Clavijo found Greeks beside Armenians in 1404. Places where only the garrison and officials used Greek are left out: Dara, Constantia, the two Arsameias, Ani, Mantzikert, Kars. So are towns with a Greek bishop but no evidence of Greek speakers: Kamacha, Arsamosata, Paipert.
“Earlier settlement” means positive evidence of a non-Greek settlement on the site before the Greek city: excavated levels, an attested pre-Greek name, or a good ancient historian. “New ground” also needs positive evidence. Legends, press reports and tourism pages do not count, and claims found only in Turkish popular sources were checked against international scholarship. Pre-Greek names are given only when attested in Hittite, Luwian, Lydian, Lycian, Carian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Aramaic or Armenian sources; a question mark flags a doubtful identification.
The Turkish name is that of the town or village whose built-up area covers the ancient city. Ruins outside a town count as ruins. Provincial capitals and district centres refer to that town.
Fourteen research batches by groups of provinces, seeded from the bishops’ sees of the councils and the Pleiades gazetteer, then five fact-checks: pre-Greek names, modern names (two halves) and dates and origins (two halves). A second round (October 2026) checked earlier settlement for every Greek foundation, and re-examined the north-east, east and south-east, adding ten cities; a second look at the inland Pontus and the east, with Bryer and Winfield’s survey of the Pontos and Clavijo’s account of 1404, added Keltzene and the Chaldian sees Leri and Cheriana. 545 places were considered and left out, each with a reason.
The full table of 603 cities with every field, sources and notes, as a CSV table, as JSON, or as the spreadsheet with its summary and the places left out.
Sources: M. H. Hansen and T. H. Nielsen, An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis (2004); G. M. Cohen, The Hellenistic Settlements (1995, 2006, 2013); Roman Provincial Coinage; Hierocles, Synecdemus; the acts of the councils; the Barrington Atlas and the Pleiades gazetteer; Wikipedia for many individual entries. Map: Natural Earth; today’s borders dashed.