Pentapolis

Pentapolis [Gr.,=five cities], collective name anciently applied to several groups of five cities. The chief cities of Cyrenaica on the northern coast of Africa (Apollonia, Arsinoë, Berenice, Cyrene, and Ptolemaïs) were thus called from the 4th cent. B.C. to the 7th cent. A.D. Other cities so named were Rimini, Ancona, Fano, Pesaro, and Senigallia on the Adriatic coast of Italy, where the term originated in the 5th cent. A.D. under Byzantine rule and continued to be used until the 11th cent. Other groups called Pentapolis were in Asia Minor and in Palestine.

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Pentapolis

A pentapolis, from the Greek words penta 'five' and polis 'city(-state)' is geographic and/or institutional grouping of five cities.

Significant historical cases

in the biblical Holy Land, the word, occurring in Wisdom, x, 6, designates the region where five cities — Sodom, Gomorrha, Segor (A. V., Zoar), Admah and Zeboim — united to resist the invasion of Chedorlaomer (Genesis, xiv), and of which four were shortly after utterly destroyed.

the medieval Pentapolis on the Adriatic coast of the Italian Peninsula, atypically, was actually a duchy east of Tuscany and north of the duchy of Spoleto, including the port cities (West to East) of Rimini, Pesaro, Fano, Sinigaglia and Ancona. It was part of the core of the Byzantine secular Exarchate of Ravenna. Later, after the fall of the Exarchate, it was transformed into the March of Ancona

the Philistine Pentapolis: Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, Gath, and Gaza

the Doric - or Dorian Pentapolis: Kos, on the island of the same name in the Aegean Sea; Cnidus, in Caria on the west coast of Asia Minor; Lindus, Ialysus and Camirus, all three on Rhodes.

the Pontic Pentapolis: Apollonia, Callatis, Mesembria, Odessos, and Tomis, all on the Euxeinos Pontos

The Western Pentapolis: 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), Barca (the later Arab provincial capital Barka) and Berenice (modern Benghazi); also known as the Pentapolis inferior ('lower P.'). This is the Pentapolis that is referenced in the official title of the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria and the Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church.

The Cinque Ports in England - the five being Hastings, New Romney, Hythe, Dover, and Sandwich. Sometimes referred to as the English Pentapolis (though seldom).