Alexander the Great (also known as Sikander to many parts of the eastern world) was the greatest general and conqueror before Christ. While he practically stamped his rule on almost all parts of the known world and made sure his exploits would provide content to history books for ages to come, very little is known about his city building endeavours.
He in fact build or renamed at least 70 cities through out Europe, Asia and Africa (mostly on his conquest route), only a few exists today. He named them after himself (Alexandria, Alexandrupolis etc.) or after people/animals he knew. However most of them have been renamed, depopulated or lost in the sands of time.
Today we know of 15-20 of these cities, mostly from old scrolls of that period, however this is a great topic for a scholarly article to discover all the 70 odd cities and trace their history through the following two millennia. This post is the first part of this article and would deals with the cities we definitely know are connected to this military ruler.
I would also request my readers to point me to cities/sites which might form part of this chain of cities and hence make this article complete.
1) Alexandria, Egypt (Africa): One of the oldest cities of the world and still called by its original name. Capital of the Ptolemic dynasty and a busling modern city in present day Egypt.
2) İskenderun (Alexandretta), Turkey: The settlement was founded by Alexander the Great in 333 BC to supersede Myriandrus as the key to the Syrian Gates, about 23 miles south of the scene of his victory at the Battle of Issus. Alexander camped at the high-lands of İskenderun, around Esentepe, and then ordered the city to be established and named "Alexandrette".
Contd.........
