Керч (Kerch)

Керч (Kerch or Kerč) has just under 150 thousand residents.¹ It was founded on the eastern tip of the Krym (Crimea) as a Greek colony called Παντικάπαιον (Pantikápaion), which grew to control most of the peninsula and some lands on the other side of the Kerch Strait. Later, as Panticapaeum, it was absorbed into the Senatvs Pvblvsqve Romanvs (Roman Republic and Empire). It was devastated in the fourth century but fortified as Βόσπορ (Bospor), later conquered by Turks and renamed Karcha, then by Khazars, then by Russians,² when it was renamed Кърчевъ (K''rchev'' or Korchev). The Mongols took it and their underlings, the Tatars, named it Keriç. Italians briefly held it as Cerco³ before the Turks took it again as كرچ (Keriç). It became part of the Russian state in the 18th century, and was officially called Керчь (Kerch' or Kerč') until Україна (Ukrayina or the Ukraine) became its own state in the 20th century.

External references

steps and remains at Mount Mithradates, Kerch

Historical maps

Footnotes

1. World-gazetteer.com, accessed 8/2/2012.
2. Russian in the older sense before Ukrainians became linguistically distinct.
3. Sometimes written as Cherkio, also called Vosporo.
4. In Tertius Chandler, Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth, 2nd ed. (The Edwin Mellen Press, 1987), "Tables of World's Largest Cities 430 BC", the city was smaller than Ayodhya, which was smaller than Rajagriha, which was smaller than Gela, which had 35 thousand residents. It was larger than Trichinopoly, which was larger than Pyongyang, which was larger than Cuicuilco, which was larger than Taiyüan, which was larger than what later became known as دمشق (Dimashq), which had 30 thousand residents.
5. Rounded from world-gazeteer.com, 2001 census (city proper), accessed 11/10/2012.