Western Asia Minor with its lacy coastline, safe harbors and many connections with Mediterranean ports was colonized as early as the 11th century BC.
The first great migration stream, known as the first Greek colonization, developed gradually after the collapse of the Mycenaean kingdoms. Greek tribes of mainland Greece successively colonized the coasts of Asia Minor and built numerous cities.
The Aeolians were the first to migrate to the area from Troas to the gulf of Smyrna, Aeolis. Then the Ionians from Attica, Evia and the northern Peloponnese colonized the central part of the Anatolian coast, Ionia. The Dorians were the last to move from the Peloponnese to the southern Cyclades, Crete, Rhodes and Kos and then to the southern coast of Asia Minor.
Each people founded cities which later developed into independent tribal states. Aeolis was successively conquered by the Mysians, the Lydians and the Persians. The Ionian Common or Ionian Dodecapolis respectively included the 12 most powerful Ionian cities. Numerous, wealthy and sophisticated, the cities of Greater Ionia, as the whole western coast was later called, played a key role in the ancient world in terms of philosophy, sciences, arts and letters.
Miletos, Priene, Ephesus, Teos, Klazomenai, Phocaea, Erythres, Magnesia of the Maiander, Didyma, Herakleia on Latmos, Aphrodisias, Evromos, Stratoniceia were some of them. Ephesus was where the famous Temple of Artemis was located. Such was its tremendous size, double the dimensions of other Greek temples including the Parthenon, that it was regarded as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Architecturally, their legacy includes the three famous orders of classical architecture - Ionic, Doric and Corinthian. In architecture an order is a combination of a certain style of column with or without a base and an entablature (what the column supports: the architrave, frieze, and cornice). These 3 orders became the basic grammar of western architecture and examples of them in one form or another are still present in every capital of the world.
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