Uninstalled Anaconda still shows up in PATH (Mac OS X) - bash

Question

I have installed Anaconda a few months ago but then uninstalled it and removed all anaconda files by using
rm -rf ~/anaconda
but when I run
echo $PATH
it still outputs a path that point to an Anaconda folder but when I search for it, it doesn't even exist, why is that happening?

Answer 1

What makes you think that non-existent directory are automatically
removed from $PATH? They are not. As an example I can make a new dir
and go there:
$ mkdir /tmp/new-path-dir && cd /tmp/new-path-dir
Add it to the $PATH:
$ PATH=/tmp/new-path-dir:$PATH
$ echo $PATH
/tmp/new-path-dir:<REST_OF_PATH>
Make a new olleh.so (hello spelled backwards) executable inside
it:
$ echo 'echo hi' > olleh.so && chmod +x olleh.so
Then go back to ~:
$ cd ~
And start a olleh.so:
$ olleh.so
hi
Now I can safely remove /tmp/new-path-dir:
$ rm -r /tmp/new-path-dir/
And it still will be shown in my $PATH:
$ echo $PATH
/tmp/new-path-dir:<REST_OF_PATH>
But I won't be able to run olleh.so any more:
$ olleh.so
bash: /tmp/new-path-dir/olleh.so: No such file or directory
And as paths to executables are cached by bash I can get rid of
olleh.so permanently like this:
$ hash -r
$ olleh.so
bash: olleh.so: command not found