The story of Nicomedia

This city's first name meant "lobster". Megarian Greek colonists founded Astakos in 712/711 BC at the innermost point of the Gulf of İzmit, and the gulf itself was called the Astakos Gulf, probably after the lobsters once caught here. Lysimachus, king of Thrace, razed the town, but in 264 BC King Nicomedes I of Bithynia rebuilt it and gave it his own name: Nicomedia.

The sheltered gulf worked as a natural harbour, while a large lake, today's Lake Sapanca, and the Sakarya River lay behind it. Ancient writers placed the city at one of the key crossroads between Europe and Asia, and Strabo says it grew quickly. In AD 286 Emperor Diocletian declared Nicomedia the eastern capital of the Roman Empire, ranking it with Rome, Alexandria and Antioch.

After the Ottoman conquest the name became İzmit, and the ancient city's remains now lie beneath the busy industrial town.