Dorians from Troezen in the Peloponnese are the traditional founders of Halicarnassus, situated on the Gulf of Cerameicus in Caria. (Herodotus, a Halicarnassian, relates that in early times the city participated in the Dorian festival of Apollo at Triopion, but its literature and culture appear thoroughly Ionic.)

Among the islands and coast of southwestern Anatolia, six (later five) Dorian cities—Kos, Halicarnassus, and Cnidus, along with the Rhodian cities of Lindus, Ialysus, and Camirus—belong to the Dorian Hexapolis (league of six cities) by which the Greeks protect themselves in Asia Minor.