There are certain regions of the world which due to geostrategic reasons have suffered frequent military combat throughout history. A European example is Flanders, which got devastated every time France wanted to conquer Germany (and the rest of Europe) or Germany wanted to conquer France (and the rest of Europe). But what is the single place with the most recorded battles in history? I don’t know if that is even answerable, but there’s no better place to ask than here on the Dope.
I think Israel would be in the top 5.
Thermopylae (of Three Hundred fame) is one starting place. While Flanders is an entire region, Thermopylae is a single pass where dozens of conflicts have taken place, essentially any time a force north of it wanted to head further south into Greece. Wikipedia lists 8 battles there, but according to Herodotus, it was already an oft-used battle site by the time Leonidas and company made their way there.
Yeah, that’s the kind of example I was going for, though my example Flanders is a whole region, I meant a special place, city or field.
There have been three major battles Panipat, each of them have changed the fate of India.
Its the last defendable position before Delhi and control of all of North India.
Are we counting the bazillion Battles of the Isonzo during WWI (damn you, Cadorna!) as one really long battle or individually?
Jerusalem might be a good contender.
From Wikipedia
Maybe not a front runner (hard to beat Jerusalem, I suspect), but worthy of mention: Battles of Ctesiphon. And where is Ctesiphon? Well, it’s right next door to Baghdad. That stretch along the Tigris has seen quite a bit of action in total.
BTW, about France/Belgium: I’ve been reading about both Roman history and WWI recently. I had this odd moment where I was flipping between reading about the Battle of the Axona (Caesar’s Gallic Wars) and the First Battle of the Aisne (WWI). Same river, same place, about two millennia apart.
Not in the same league as Jerusalem, but notable since it is nearly 500 years since we had a proper battle on our island; Berwick-Upon-Tweed, which sits on the northern (and thus historically Scottish) bank of the Tweed River on the North Sea coast. During the 13th and 14th centuries, both the English and Scots stubbornly vied for control of the strategically vital town. Before Elizabeth I managed to secure Berwick in the 16th Century with a cordon of impregnable walls and fortifications, the small seaside village changed hands an amazing 13 times making it perhaps the most fought over piece of land in the British Isles.
There was a factory in Stalingrad that changed hands fourteen times in one day.
The Isonzo river valley was the site of a dozen named battles in WWI (the first through the twelfth Battles of Isonzo) many in the same locations and all within 100 miles of each other.
A US civil war battle in Virginia was fought twice.
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1999-03-07/travel/9903170396_1_manassas-national-battlefield-war-battles-first-battle
Gaza City?
I was surprised to find out that Jacksonville FL was burned down seven different times during the Civil War.