Joppa (a transliteration of its 4th century greek name "Ιόππη") appears in the Bible as the name of the now Israeli city of Yafo, otherwise known as Jaffa.
Today Tel Aviv-Yafo, usually referred to as Tel Aviv, is the second-largest city in Israel.
The ancient port of Jaffa has changed hands many times in the course of history. Archeological excavations unearthed towers and gates from the Middle Bronze Age.
The city is first mentioned in letters from 1470 BCE that record its conquest by Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose III. Jaffa is mentioned several times in the Bible, as the port from which Jonah set sail for Tarshish; as bordering on the territory of the Tribe of Dan; and as the port at which the wood for Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem arrived from Lebanon. According to some sources it has been a port for at least 4,000 years.
In 1099, the Christian armies of the First Crusade, led by Godfrey of Bouillon occupied Jaffa, which had been abandoned by the Muslims, fortified the town and improved its harbor. As the County of Jaffa, the town soon became important as the main sea supply route for the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Jaffa was captured by Saladin in 1192 but swiftly re-taken by Richard Coeur de Lion, who added to its defenses. In 1223, Emperor Frederick II added further fortications. Crusader domination ended in 1268, when the Mamluk Sultan Baibars captured the town, destroyed its harbor and razed its fortifications. To prevent further Crusader incursions, the city was ransacked in 1336, 1344 and 1346 by Nasir al-Din Muhammad. In the 16th century, Jaffa was conquered by the Ottomans and was administered as a village in the Sanjak of Gaza. Napoleon besieged the city in 1799 and killed scores of inhabitants; a plague epidemic followed, decimating the remaining population.
Perseus came to Joppa in Palestine where he found the king's daughter Andromeda chained to a rock to be the prey of a sea monster.