August 9, 2020

Towns Named Alexandria

By roads-rus

One of the most common town names in the world is Alexandria. This is because of Alexander the Great. As he conquered the known world and established an empire 300 years before Christ, he got into the habit of naming towns after himself. They were usually built around already existing military forts and stretched all the way to the end of his Macedonian Empire where India and the Himalayan Mountains begin today.

But don’t go looking at maps to find these Alexandrias. Only one of them exists today as a city. The 2nd largest city in Egypt is Alexandria and it is home to more than 5 million people. Most of the others now have a name other than Alexandria. Before dying young, Alexander the Great named, according to some sources, about 70 places after himself. Wikipedia lists 29 of them including the city he named after his horse. Bucephala is said to be somewhere in modern Pakistan, but I can’t find it on any maps. Most of the cities that he named Alexandria have been renamed, and it’s clear that lots of research has gone on and many unknowns still exist. For example, the Alexandria in Afghanistan is now Herat. Alexander established at least 3 Alexandrias in what is now Turkey, but they are now called Dalyan, Alinda and Iskenderun.

Alexander also sometimes slightly changed the name. The Alexandria in today’s Bulgaria was originally known as Alexandropolis when the area was known as Thrace in Alexander’s time. There is an Alexandria in Romania that was not named for Alexander the Great. It gets very confusing in a hurry. There were once 4 Alexandrias in Afghanistan, but all have been renamed.

There are 12 for sure Alexandrias in the USA. Some sources say there are 50. Most of them are very small. The one in California is now a ghost town. The largest US Alexandria is in Louisiana.

There are Alexandrias all over the world, but few of them were named for Alexander the Great. The Alexandria in New South Wales, Australia, is home to about 8,000. The one in Canada’s Ontario has a population of 10,000. There are Alexandrias on the island of Jamaica and in South Africa.

Hank

About roads-rus

Since the beginning, I've had to avoid writing about the downside of travel in order to sell more than 100 articles. Just because something negative happened doesn't mean your trip was ruined. But tell that to publishers who are into 5-star cruise and tropical beach fantasies. I want to tell what happened on my way to the beach, and it may not have been all that pleasant. My number one rule of the road is...today's disaster is tomorrow's great story. My travel experiences have appeared in about twenty magazines and newspapers. I've been in all 50 states more than once and more than 50 countries. Ruth and I love to travel internationally--Japan, Canada, China, Argentina, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, etc. Within the next 2 years we will have visited all of the European countries. But our favorite destination is Australia. Ruth and I have been there 9 times. I've written a book about Australia's Outback, ALONE NEAR ALICE, which is available through both Amazon & Barnes & Noble. My first fictional work, MOVING FORWARD, GETTING NOWHERE, has recently been posted on Amazon. It's a contemporary, hopefully funny re-telling of The Odyssey. View all posts by roads-rus
This entry was posted on Sunday, August 9th, 2020 at 10:42 pm and posted in Town Names. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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