The ancient city was located on the shore of the Black Sea on the outskirts of present-day Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula, where it is referred to as Khersones.

During much of the classical period, Chersonesus operated as a democracy ruled by a group of elected archons and a council called the Damiorgi.

Byzantine rule was slight: there was a small imperial garrison more for the town's protection than for its control and it exercised a measure of self-government.

[1] It was useful to Byzantium in two ways: it was an observation point to watch the barbarian tribes, and its isolation made it a popular place of exile for those who angered the Roman and later Byzantine governments.

[5] In 833, Emperor Theophilus sent the nobleman Petronas Kamateros, who had recently overseen the construction of the Khazar fortress of Sarkel, to take direct control over the city and its environs, establishing the theme of Klimata/Cherson.

Since this campaign is not recorded in Greek sources, historians have suggested that the account actually refers to the events of the Rus'–Byzantine War (1043) and to a different Vladimir.

Chersonesus had been a Roman pre-Great Schism, later Greek/Orthodox, episcopal see for centuries, elevated early to the rank of archbishopric, since it is mentioned as such in the Notitiae Episcopatuum; it disappeared after the Turkish conquest in 1475 and the destruction of the city.

In 1333, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chersonesus in Zechia was established, but it appears that it had only a bishop, a Dominican called Richard the Englishman.

[1] The surrounding land under the control of the city, the chora, consists of several square kilometres of ancient but now barren farmland, with remains of wine presses and defensive towers.

Each stone marks the tomb of an individual, instead of the whole family and the decorations include only objects like sashes and weapons, instead of burial statues.

On February 13, 2009, Ukrainian Defence Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov called on Russia's Black Sea naval fleet to move its automobile depot from the site to another place.

The location of the Russian Black Sea naval fleet's automobile depot was one of the obstacles to the inclusion of the reserve on UNESCO's list of world heritage sites.

[11][12] In 2022, researchers analyzed human skeletal remains from a necropolis in the northern part of Chersonesus, dating to the earliest period of the colony (between the 5th and the 4th century BC).

[19] In 2014, the Crimean peninsula was annexed by Russia, but UNESCO has maintained that it will continue to recognize Crimea and its heritage sites as belonging to Ukraine.

[22] On July 29, 2015, the governor of Sevastopol, Sergey Menyaylo, controversially fired the director of the National Preserve of Tauric Chersonesos, Andrey Kulagin.

He then appointed the head priest of the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of Saint Vladimir in Chersonesus, Sergiy Khalyuta, as the new director of the Preserve.

The conflict attracted significant attention from the media, particularly due to its political connotations, given that Menyaylo had been appointed governor by Russian president Vladimir Putin, shortly after Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014.