Pentapolis

Significant historical cases

• The Philistine Pentapolis: Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron, and Gath, all combined to make Philistia.
• In the biblical Holy Land, Genesis 14 describes the region where five cities—Sodom, Gomorrah, Zoara, Admah and Zeboim—united to resist the invasion of Chedorlaomer, and of which four were shortly after destroyed.
• The Doric—or Dorian Pentapolis: Kos, on the island of the same name in the Aegean Sea; Knidos, in Caria on the west coast of Asia Minor; Lindus, Ialysus and Camirus, all three on Rhodes.
• The Phrygian Pentapolis: Eukarpia, Hierapolis, Otrus, Bruzus, and Stectorium.
• The Pontic Pentapolis: Apollonia, Callatis, Mesembria, Odessos, and Tomis, all on the Black Sea.
• The Western Pentapolis of Cyrenaica: five main Greek colonies that came to be in the Roman province of Libya Superior, the western part of Cyrenaica until Diocletian's Tetrarchy reform in AD 296 (now Libya). The most important was Cyrene and its port Apollonia, Ptolemais (the next capital after Cyrene's destruction by an earthquake), port of Barca (the later Arab provincial capital Barka), Teucheira (modern Tocra) and Berenice (modern Benghazi); also known as the Pentapolis inferior ("lower pentapolis"'). This is the Pentapolis that is referenced in the official title of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria and the Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church.
• In Italy there were:
  • an early pentapolis including: Ravenna, Forlì, Forlimpopoli, Classe, Caesarea.
  • a later, medieval Duchy of the Pentapolis on the Adriatic coast east of Tuscany and north of the duchy of Spoleto, including the port cities (North to South) of Rimini, Pesaro, Fano, Sinigaglia and Ancona. It was part of the core of the Byzantine Exarchate of Ravenna. Later, after the fall of the Exarchate, it was transformed into the March of Ancona
• The Cinque Ports in England—the five being Hastings, New Romney, Hythe, Dover, and Sandwich.