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Antakya, also called Hatay, and formerly called Άντιοχεια (Antiocheia) and أنطاقيه (Anṭākiyyah), both anglicized to Antioch, and Θεόπoλις (Theopolis or City of God), and Antiochia, is located in southeast Türkiye (Turkey) on the left (east) bank of the Asi ('Āsi River)and had a population of over 200 thousand in 2010.1 It rose to greatness as a city in Arche Seleukeia (the Seleucid Empire), and peaked as part of Rhomania (Romania or the Byzantine Empire). The ancient sites are mostly obscured though there are some walls and aqueducts from the Roman period, a cave of importance to Christians, and, in non-Turkish museums, statues and objects from the classical and late antiquity.
Year | Population1, 2 | Political entity |
200 BCE | 120,000 | Arche Seleukeia (Seleucid Empire) |
100 CE | 150,000 | Senatvs Pvblvsqve Romanvs (Roman Empire) |
361 CE | 150,000 | Rhomania (Romania or the Byzantine Empire) |
500 CE | 150,000 | Rhomania (Romania or the Byzantine Empire) |
2000 CE | 144,910 | Türkiye (Turkey) |
1. World-gazetteer.com, census, 2000 and calculated estimate for 2010, accessed 5/7 and 9/3/2011.
2. All but 2000 from Tables of the World's Largest Cities, in Tertius Chandler, Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth, 2nd ed. (The Edwin Mellen Press, 1987). In 200 BCE and 100 CE it was the largest city, and in 361 and 500 CE the second largest city, in what is now Türkiye (Turkey); in 200 BCE it was the seventh largest, in 100 CE the fifth largest, in 361 the sixth largest, and in 500 the second largest, city in the world.