Chersonesus

Chersonesus, contracted in medieval Greek to Cherson, was an ancient Greek colony founded approximately 2,500 years ago in the southwestern part of the Crimean Peninsula, established by settlers from Heraclea Pontica in Bithynia in the sixth century BC. The ancient city stood on the shore of the Black Sea on the outskirts of present-day Sevastopol, where the site is known as Khersones and forms part of the National Preserve of Tauric Chersonesos; its Greek name means peninsula, and it should not be confused with the broader Tauric Chersonese, a name sometimes applied to all of southern Crimea. During much of the classical period Chersonesus operated as a democracy ruled by elected archons and a council called the Damiorgi, though the government grew more oligarchic over time as power concentrated in the archons, and a citizens' oath sworn from the third century BC onward survives to the present day. UNESCO listed Chersonesus as a World Heritage Site in 2013.