Giresun stands on a peninsula running out into the Black Sea, in the north-east of Anatolia where the green meets the blue. The province covers 6,934 square kilometres, a little under a thousandth of the country. Some sources date the city's founding to around 350 BC.
The first inhabitants of the region were the old Anatolian peoples. Colonists from Miletos later founded the city of Kerasus near Çıtlakkale, and the name comes from the wild cherry that grows here — ceresia.
In 183 BC the Pontic king Pharnakes I seized the city. It was wrecked in the fighting, and a new one was built on the peninsula two kilometres to the east and named Pharnakeia. When the Pontic king Mithridates was beaten by the Roman commander Lucullus, Pharnakeia passed to Rome. The city changed hands between Rome and Pontos several times, and under Roman rule its name became Kerasus again. When the empire divided in AD 395 it was attached to the eastern half.
