Messina founded
800 BCE.
Shown on the map at 38.194°, 15.554°.
Messina ( meh-SEE-nə, US also mih-; Italian: [mesˈsiːna] ) is a harbour city and the capital of the Italian Metropolitan City of Messina. It is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, and the 13th largest city in Italy, with a population of 217,033 inhabitants in the city proper and 595,948 in the metropolitan city as of 2025. It is located near the northeast corner of Sicily, at the Strait of Messina and it is an important access terminal to Calabria region, Villa San Giovanni, Reggio Calabria on the mainland. Founded by the Sicels with the name of Zancle in 757 BC, which in their language meant sickle, it was repopulated by Greek colonists of Magna Graecia and renamed Messana. The city was renamed Messina in the Byzantine period. It was a major Roman city that contracted under the Byzantine and Arab rule to rise sharply in importance during the Norman era.
Text from the Wikipedia article Messina, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.