Mecca of the English transliteration for the Arabic name of the city, although the official transliteration used by the Saudi government is "Makkah", which is closer to the Arabic pronunciation. The word "Mecca" in English has come to be used to refer to any place that draws large numbers of people, and because of this some English speaking Muslims have come to regard the use of this spelling for the city as offensive. The Saudi government adopted "Makkah" as the official spelling in the 1980s, but is not universally known or used worldwide. The full official name is "Makkah al-Mukarramah" ()
Black mecca Memphis, Durham, Philadelphia, Houston and New Orleans, as well as New York (as a whole, i.e. not just Harlem), Baltimore, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Oakland, Miami, Charlotte, Cleveland, Dallas, and Joliet, Illinois. In the 1850's, the city of Chatham, Ontario was referred to as the "Black Mecca of Canada", as a final stop on the Underground Railroad. A museum in the city, the Black Mecca Museum, still bares this name. The small city was home to a number of black churches and business, with Black Canadians making up 1/3 of the city's population and controlling a significant portion of