Cambysopolis is the non-classical name of a Roman Catholic titular bishopric in the former Roman province of Asia Minor. The name is owing to a mistake of some medieval geographer.
After his victory at Issus (333 B.C.) Alexander the Great built, near the ancient town of Myriandros, a city called after him Alexandria Minor (or Alexandria ad Issum, or, more frequently Alexandria Scabiosa, i.e. mountainous).
It became a suffragan diocese of Anazarbus, the metropolis of the Roman province of Cilicia Secunda.
Lequien (II, 903) mentions a dozen bishops; among them
In an Antiochene Notitia episcopatuum of the tenth century [A.P. Kerameus, Maurocordatos' Library (Greek), Constantinople, 1884, p. 66], instead of Alexandria Scabiosa, we read the strange form Alexandroukambousou, in one word. A little later, and surely in the twelfth century, this corrupt form was mistaken for two names and thus arose Alexandrou and Kambysou (polis). Hence came two episcopal titles connected with one city, and the name Cambysopolis passed into all the Greek and Latin "Notitiae episcopatuum". The Roman Curia preserved only the title Cambysopolis; the correct Ancient name, Alexandria Scabiosa, exists no more.
The city, situated on the bay of the same name, was later called Alexandretta, and by the Turks Iskanderoun when it was in the vilayet of Aleppo, and was united to that Syrian latter city by a carriage-road. In the early 20th century it had about 7000 inhabitants (3000 Greeks, 500 Catholics of Latin and Eastern Rites). The Catholic parish was conducted by Carmelites, and there are attached to it Sisters of St. Joseph.
On 10 August 1920 the whole Sandjak (district within the vilayet) of Alexandretta became part of French Syria, and thus on 23 September 1923 part of Alawite (Latakia) State of French Syria, where in March 1926 - June 1926 the separate State of Alexandretta within French Syria declared, but not recognized by French authorities.
On 5 September 1938 the Sandjak of Alexandretta was again separated from Syria as State of Hatay (under French protection). On 23 July 1939 it was incorporated into the modern republic of Turkey.