Massalia was discovered in 1852 by Annibale de Gasparis and is the twentieth of all discovered asteroids. Hence Massalia is asteroid #20 and of course quite large. Jean Chacornac discovered the same asteroid independently at the observatory of Marseille. Hence the asteroid is named Massalia after the Ancient Greek name of this city. Massalia belongs to the type S. Massalia was the very first asteroid, which got a final name, which isn’t taken from any mythology. Hence Massalia is also the first place name asteroid! Furthermore Massalia is also the head of the Hirayama-family Massalia in the Inner Asteroid Belt. More than six-thousand members of the Massalia-family are known. Mars is trying to knock a gap into the Massalia-family by a 2:1 resonance. Massalia is of course, like all place name asteroids, hinting to places. In this case to Marseille, but maybe even to places in general.