Our glorious county of Kent has been around since the Roman times and possibly before it, as the Italian conquerers called the area Cantiaca. The Anglo-Saxons used this title when naming their new-found southeastern kingdom - Cantware, or 'inhabitants of Kent' - in the mid-5th Century.

Though we live in the original Kent, many residents have journeyed far and wide over the succeeding centuries and laid claim to a number of places.

Alternatively, the explorers so admired Kent that they chose to name their geographic discoveries after the county.

Here we list some of the places for which Kent is the namesake, and get a glimpse at their past and present.

Africa

In Africa, only one settlement has the actual name Kent.

In Sierra Leone, a fishing village goes by the name and like the county is known for its long beaches and strong fishing community.

The village was a centre for the Portuguese slave trade during the 17th and 18th centuries, but later became a haven and home for hundreds of freed African American and West Indian slaves once British slavery was abolished.

British boats patrolled the shores to deter illegal slave captures, and it was named Kent during the period shortly after the slavery abolition in the 1830s.

In 2013, Kent Cricket Club teamed up with Sierra Leone's Kent Cricket Club, donating equipment which is needed for the African team's hope of using the sport to educate young people on HIV/AIDS, teenage pregnancy and other health related issues.

While not called Kent, Margate in South Africa is a popular destination for swimming, snorkelling and surfing.

The town made headlines worldwide in 1924 when a huge furry creature with white hair washed up on the beach.

Dubbed 'Trunko', the body was too decomposed for accurate identification but allegedly the creature had been spotted off the coast battling two whales for three hours.

Australasia

The county has lent its name to a number of places across the continent, having mostly been charted by Englishmen or their descendants.

One such place is The Kent Group, a collection of six protected islands between Australia and Tasmania.

While not named after our region but after sailor William Kent, some familiar placenames do feature - the largest island is Deal Island, while the third largest is called Dover Island.

The rocky landmasses has long served as a sanctuary from the gales of the Bass Strait, however it is still a dangerous resting place.

At least 18 shipwrecks can be found in The Kent Group, with the most recent being the St Nicholas in 1961.

One example of the name on mainland Australia has since been removed, that being Western Australia's Kent County.

Named in 1829 after then second-in-line to the throne Princess Alexandrina Victoria of Kent, the original 26 counties were merged into nine larger regions in 1997.

Elsewhere on the mainland is Kent Institute Australia, a university with sites in Sydney and Melbourne that specialises in business and IT.

North America

The continent with the most Kents is North America, with both Canada and the United States bearing places with the name.

The District of Kent in British Columbia, Canada was largely established through a gold rush in 1858.

It is a sparsely populated region with 6,067 inhabitants covering 65 sq miles - by comparison, the area covered by Canterbury City Council has roughly 14 times the population density.

One thing that Kent, UK doesn't have is a mountain, whereas our Canadian counterpart boasts Mount Woodside at 793 metres in elevation.

Agassiz, the only town in the area, also hosts a tulip festival every year.

In the United States, at least 16 places share their name with our county.

Perhaps most famous - or infamous - is the city of Kent, Ohio, where several students were shot by police at the Kent State University while protesting the Vietnam War in 1970.

Residents of the city are called Kentites, and it has three local radio stations and three television stations.

One of the city's parks is called Brady's Leap, commemorating a Revolutionary War captain's 21ft jump over a river to evade capture by Native Americans.

Leading up to the American Civil War, Kent was also a stop on the Underground Railroad - a path for fugitive slaves making their way to freedom in Canada.

Native Americans lived on Kent Island in Maryland for nearly 12,000 years before European settlers arrived in 1631.

Among the first Europeans to see Kent Island was Captain John Smith of Pocahontas fame, and the island held one of the first permanent settlements in the United States.

Kent Fort, established in 1631, was only preceded by Jamestown, Virginia (1607) and Plymouth, Massachusetts (1620).

The original Chesapeake Bay Bridge - which connected Kent Island to the mainland - was the world's longest continuous over-water steel structure when it opened in 1952.

A Kent that has kept a record since 1981 is the so-called Town of Kent in Putnam County, New York.

Its most unique claim to fame is having the Chuang Yen Monastery, which features the western hemisphere's largest indoor Buddha statue.

The statue - 35-feet-high and surrounded by 10,000 smaller Buddha statues - is housed in the stylised Great Buddha Hall, which was opened by the Dalai Lama.

Kent in Washington State is the fourth fastest-growing city in the US, according to one study.

Originally called Titusville after one of the original settlers, it was renamed due to its main product being the same as us - hops.

During the Great Depression, Kent was known as "The lettuce capital of the world" however aerospace industries soon moved in.

This iteration of Kent found its lettuce fields replaced by an out-of-this-world Boeing factory... literally.

The lunar rovers - or moon buggies - for Apollo 15, 16 and 17 were assembled and tested at the city's Boeing factory.

Donations are now being sought by the city's government to build a space-themed park downtown to commemorate its place in space travel history.

If you visit the final Kent we'll be looking at on this list, you might feel like you've found yourself on the moon.

Kent in Texas is listed as a ghost town, with only a general store still operating as of 2015.

Despite having 60 inhabitants in the year 2000, most businesses had vacated in the 1950s and 1960s.

Within its boundaries, there are no medical, pharmaceutical, educational, legal, police or fire services - the nearest being 37 miles away in Van Horn.

Have you ever visited another Kent around the world? If so, comment below on what you thought of it.

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