2864: Oldest "New" City Oct 23, 2024

These days, cities or other regions being named for another place is pretty common. Just looking in America, 4 of 50 states—New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York—are named as ‘New …’, not to mention countless cities, both with the epithet or not (e.g. Cairo, Illinois or St. Petersburg, Florida). It may be surprising, but the ancient world had some ‘New …’ cities as well.

The oldest contender, and is probably Carthage, now Tunis. In Phoenician it was Qart Hadasht just meaning ‘new city’ named when the Phoenicians a.k.a. Canaanites moved their seat of power to there from Tyre, Lebanon sometime in the 9th century BC. That might not count since it is not named for another place. What definitely was is New Carthage, known now as the Spanish city of Cartagena, from Latin Carthago Nova or in Phoenician as Qart Hadasht just, again meaning ‘new city’ but in Latin it was directly named for the city of Carthage as they did not understand the name meaningfully. This New New City, as it were, was founded or at least rededicated shortly after the First Punic War. 

Elsewhere, the city of Naples comes from the Greek Νεάπολις (Neápolis) also meaning ‘new city’, after having expanded the port city of Παρθενόπη (Parthenope) meaning "Pure Eyes". Again, this is not exactly naming after another place, but to consider a “new city” in the 7th century BC is notable. 

Otherwise, the practice of naming a city or region wholesale after another place only became commonly in the Age of Exploration, but was common for all nations involved, including by the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French, and English alike. This also came at a time when the frequency of naming cities was maybe at its height.