18 ms·

List of oldest continuously inhabited cities

323 points by ag8 6y ago

jedberg 6y ago
There is some definite bias here. I can assure you that San Diego was inhabited by the native people long before 1789. They might not have called it San Diego, but they certainly had a concept of settlement. 1789 is more like their colonization year, not their settlement year.
reallydontask 6y ago
I like how Rome is listed as 753 BCE. A lot of guess work on these dates
- smitty1e 6y ago
  Best estimate, until the next archaeological discovery. As long as we don't equate estimates with facts, we're good.
  - machello13 6y ago
    If you're suggesting that the 753 BC date is archaeological, you're incorrect. 753 BC is the legendary date. There's archaeological evidence of habitation on the hills of Rome earlier than that.
    - corebit 6y ago
      Yes but when did it become a "city" versus just a caveman camp?
      - netsharc 6y ago
        When do you have a handful of sand? If you take 1 grain of sand and put it in your hand, that's not a handful. Same with 2, 3. How many grains of sand constitutes a handful?
        levosmetalo 6y ago
        42
        owenversteeg 6y ago
        In the example of a handful: the average "handful" is around 100-50mL. Say we define a "handful" as 50mL +/- 1 order of magnitude. On the high end, you have Andre the Giant, who could easily fit a 12 oz beer in his hand no problem (354 mL.) On the low end, you have children; even kids with small hands can hold 5mL. --- Sure, there's some ambiguity, and of course there's not a hard number on it. But that doesn't mean you can't tell if something is a city. Nobody would argue that, for example, NYC isn't a city, or London or Amsterdam or whatnot. As the world population grew, so did the definition of "city". 12,000 years ago, there were somewhere around ten million people in the entire world, so a definition of somewhere in the neighborhood of 0.1% of the world population (10,000 people) for a city seems reasonable, plus or minus one order of magnitude. I'll call it Owen's Law :) That holds for today: 0.1% of the world population is 7.8 million, plus or minus 1 order of magnitude - I'd say that's a fine definition for a city. In any case, it works very well today: at the large end you have cities like Chongqing with 30+ million in the municipality, and at the small end you have cities like Rotterdam with around 700k people in the city proper. To check if my rule of thumb worked: At the year 1, assuming 200 million people in the world, that's setting a city around 200,000 people, plus or minus 1 order of magnitude. The largest city in the world was Rome, between 1MM-400k people; all the top 10 largest cities fell within the rule. - It holds at the year 1000 (world pop. ~300MM, largest city Córdoba with 400k, smaller cities like Nimes with 56k.) - It holds at the year 1500 (world pop. 500MM, largest city Constantinople 250k, smaller cities like Palermo, Florence, Madrid, Moscow with ~70k.) - It holds at 1800 (world pop. ~1 billion, largest cities Vienna and London ~1MM, smaller cities like Berlin, Lyon, Venice 150k.) - It holds at 1900 (world pop. 1.6 billion, largest city London 5.5MM, smaller cities Naples, Madrid, Amsterdam ~500k.)
        dredmorbius 6y ago
        Sorites Paradox. The fallacy lies in the question, that a collection of sand is either individual grains aggregated, or a heap. One response is that "heap" describes not quantity but behaviour, or even more crucially, useful mental models. The old parable of grains of rice doubled on successive squares of a chessboard gives a useful visual image, here: http://all-funny.info/rice-chessboard-story http://all-funny.info/rice-chessboard-story I'd argue that the transition between "grains" and "heap" occurs somewhere between 16 and 128 grains, the 6th to 8th squares (2^5 to 2^7). Sixteen grains is still, mostly, individual grains. 128 grains is almost certainly a heap. In urban geography, urbanisations are virtually always classed by the log, usually base ten, of their population. This gives settlements of class 0 (one inhabitant) to about class 7.6 (roughly 40 millions of souls, greater Tokyo). Distribution nearly perfectly follows a power distribution -- frequency distribution is linear with the log size. Going back through human history, the first settlements we might have termed "cities" may well have been only a few hundreds of inhabitants, but they would have dominated their regions. Anthropologists typically identify Uruk as the first settlement recognised as a city. "Many ancient cities had only modest populations, often under 5,000 persons." https://www.ancient.eu/city/ https://www.ancient.eu/city/ A city is a permanent settlement of size and complexity which acts as a city.
    - smitty1e 6y ago
      My actual point is that archaeological estimates are like epidemiological models: smart folks offering a snapshot of what they know. Until that knowledge is over-written.
  - deleted 6y ago
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  - blotter_paper 6y ago
    The column next to that date notes that there is village structure dated to the 9th century BC; the 753 date is actually downright mythical rather than archeological, but where some mythical dates exaggerate antiquity (e.g. lists of Sumerian kings) this mythical date cuts antiquity short to give city founding credit to the (probably entirely mythical?) Romulus rather than give recognition to the prior Greek settlement on the Palantine Hill (which Roman sources mentioned, while still claiming to be only as old as Romulus' city). It's an odd cultural carry over from Roman times to see in a wikipedia page, recognized in one column and ignored in the one prior.
    - swasheck 6y ago
      much of rome's ancient history is "mythical" in that it the only historical evidence we have are the legends handed down from that time. many of them appear to be attempts to reconcile the status of the early republic with the foundational history of the village/town/location of rome. i loved reading the rise of rome, by anthony everitt. https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Rome-Making-Worlds-Greatest/dp/0812978153 https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Rome-Making-Worlds-Greatest/dp/0...
  - alxlaz 6y ago
    That's not an estimate based on archaeological discovery, it's the classical date given by Varro Reatinus, which he took from Titus Atticus (I'm mentioning Varro Reatinus simply because this timeline is now called the "Varronian timeline"). Titus Atticus came up with it based on various traditions and works available to him, but it's really just one of the dates that have been proposed by people in that age. It's the most common traditional date today largely because of a pretty complicated tradition of politics, and of legal and written works, that ends with Joseph Scaliger in the 16th century. It became, more or less, the "official" chronology used by the Roman state at one point, and it ended up inscribed on Augustus' Arch and on the Fasti Capitolini. But that's about it. In fact, it's likely that everyone even back then knew at least a good part of it was made up, since it was based on a bunch of traditional dates that didn't quite add up, and Tittus Atticus (edit: or Varro Reatinus? I don't remember which one) had to insert various "dark years" and "anarchic periods" in-between so that his chronology would match the timeline of consulships. It's hard to put a date on it, because Rome likely developed out of several villages in the region. The oldest arcaheological evidence from the area is way older than the 8th century BC. The Romans themselves didn't have anything other than a best guess about it, either (and several were put forth, not just this one). Edit: yep, I'm really fun at parties!
- codq 6y ago
  The age claims listed are generally disputed. Differences in opinion can result from different definitions of "city" as well as "continuous habitation" and historical evidence is often disputed. Caveats (and sources) to the validity of each claim are discussed in the "Notes" column. Literally the introduction.
- riffraff 6y ago
  Not only that, it's precisely the 21st of April, Rome's birthday just went by :)
  - viklove 6y ago
    Turns out Rome was built in a day. Specifically, the 21st of April.
    - sedatk 6y ago
      No, that was the date of launch, along with a keynote from the caesar.
      - saalweachter 6y ago
        Rex.
JoeAltmaier 6y ago
This leaves out nomadic populations that have had continuous populations for thousands of years. E.g. in Canada, 14,000 years. Because they can't put a pin in a map. So some really old, continuously inhabited areas in the world. Blows away the named ones. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/one-oldest-north-american-settlements-found-180962750/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/one-oldest-north-a... {edit} wow who knew there were so many militant amateur archaeologists, or that the mere mention of nomads would create such a passionate backlash! Folks are getting really owly in their isolation I guess.
- theandrewbailey 6y ago
  Nomads, practically by definition, do not continuously inhabit cities for long periods.
  - JamesG124 6y ago
    the space they occupy can be conceptualised as a city
  - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
    ...and because they don't have a pin on the map, are ignored. As was my point. No worries; being ignored and marginalized is among the least troubles they have.
    - DeusExMachina 6y ago
      Does that mean that we have to force them into any list even if they don't belong there, just to be politically correct? This is a list about cities, not civilizations. Nomadic populations can be included in lists that talk about those topics. There can also be a list of "oldest nomadic populations" from which cities are excluded.
      - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
        Hey Mr. Strawman! I just made an observation - there are many older stable populations, than older stable named cities. Keep your owly comments to yourself.
ginko 6y ago
Splitting these by continent is somewhat disingenuous since many of the oldest civilizations and settlements are at the intersection of Africa, Asia and Europe.
- laurent123456 6y ago
  There are many awful lists like this on Wikipedia as it seems the criteria for them are a lot less strict than for articles. I guess whoever creates the list can argue that each individual item is sourced, even though the selection of items and their organisation is original research [0], and thus should not be allowed. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research
  - barbegal 6y ago
    I agree, I don't mind lists like "Largest countries" as that is fairly definitive but when you get into subjective lists of things that are hard to properly define, measure or record like "costliest hurricane damage"[1], "longest-living organisms"[2] or "deadliest animals"[3] then the articles become a joke. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atlantic_hurricane_records https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atlantic_hurricane_rec... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest-living_organisms#Animals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest-living_organis... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadliest_animals_to_humans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadliest_animals_to_h...
    - y-c-o-m-b 6y ago
      How would you approach those things? Do we altogether avoid making those lists because they don't fit a strict criteria? I think they serve a very useful purpose and taken in the correct context, are incredibly informative. At the very least it stimulates curiosity which is a positive effect in itself.
      - dwohnitmok 6y ago
impendia 6y ago
I had the opportunity to visit Byblos, Lebanon and spend a few hours walking around. It was fascinating to me how many different civilizations had left physical imprints: Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, European Crusaders. I highly recommend a visit to any city on this list.
- bald 6y ago
  as a native German, I can say you might want to skip Neuss, you won't miss out on a lot :P
- netcan 6y ago
  Don't forget Phoenicians, Assyrians & such. They were the local cultures. Those others were imperial rulers.
- ronyfadel 6y ago
  I’m from a town nearby. It’s a shame how the ruins have been left filthy and unattended. A Phoenician king’s tomb from multiple millenia BCE is littered with cans of soda and plastic bottles. When I brought friends from Europe to see Lebanon, we saw, I kid you not, the tour guide throwing an empty plastic water bottle down the crater that held sarcophagi.
  - deleted 6y ago
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- anonu 6y ago
  Phoenicians as well. And the Canaanites [1] before them. Byblos is indeed an ancient city. It's believed that the first inhabitants were there around 8000BCE. Today's vestiges in Byblos are maybe younger than 500BCE though.. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaan
  - deleted 6y ago
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d_silin 6y ago
I happened to be born in one of those cities. AMA :)
- macewindu 6y ago
  which one?
- np_tedious 6y ago
  OK. First question: which one?
  - d_silin 6y ago
    Where: Belgorod-Dnestrovsky (ex Ancient Greek colony) on the Black Sea coast.
- egypturnash 6y ago
  Have you lived in much younger cities? How does the weight of history in the old city compare? Do you prefer to live in a younger city, or an elder one, and why? I grew up in New Orleans and every other US city I’ve lived in has felt kind of... unmoored... in a certain way, what history there is in much of the rest of the country has been thoroughly torn down, and it’s not like there’s much history in a 1940s building yet anyway.
  - InitialLastName 6y ago
    Have you lived in any of the older cities on the East Coast? The Philadelphia and Boston areas have an enormous amount of history still present and visible, especially in the outskirts that haven't faced as much commercial pressure. Even downtown in both cities there's quite a lot that's been maintained from the colonial era.
    - iso1631 6y ago
      I do feel that America makes a much bigger thing about recent history than the rest of the world - there feels far more history in Boston and New York than in Chester (my nearest historical towns), despite the latter being founded in AD79. The local cafe I (used to) go to for lunch at weekends was built in 1583 (the building on that site had burnt down in a fire). There's some history at the start of the menu, and sure it's older than most of the houses in town, but it's no means unique and there are older buildings in town (not many as most burnt down in the 1583 fire)
deleted 6y ago
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glitchc 6y ago
This list seems hardly complete. There’s no mention of Central Asia for instance.
- andybak 6y ago
  I spotted Afghanistan which is pretty damn Central Asian.
- InitialLastName 6y ago
  Do you have a city to propose? Feel free to add it to the list, especially as it shouldn't be too hard to check the age using the Wikipedia article on the city.
jasonswett 6y ago
What about London?
- egypturnash 6y ago
  Wikipedia’s date for that is 43 AD, there’s a long list of European cities that stops a lifetime before that.
  - iso1631 6y ago
    By splitting into different regions it masks the difference in numbers and age across the world. A list of "oldest cities" which contains places like Canbera and Detroit, but not places like London and Venice, seems very odd
  - m-i-l 6y ago
    > "Wikipedia’s date for that is 43 AD" There was a story a couple of weeks ago[0] about pottery dating from around 3600BCE being found at a site in Shoreditch (which was being excavated for the new Amazon HQ), suggesting London may have been inhabited considerably longer than previously thought. [0] https://www.mola.org.uk/blog/largest-group-early-neolithic-pottery-ever-found-london-dated-using-new-technique https://www.mola.org.uk/blog/largest-group-early-neolithic-p... & https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2178-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2178-z
    - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
      That wouldn't be "London city" that would be "a village which the latter settlement of London expanded to encompass"; which is significantly different. Not longest inhabited areas, but continuously inhabited city.
- ElCapitanMarkla 6y ago
  It’s odd that London isn’t listed yet there are a bunch that are only a couple of hundred years old
- einarfd 6y ago
HorkHunter 6y ago
So, Lisbon is older than Rome, TIL!
- galfarragem 6y ago
  It is very common, in downtown Lisbon, when doing some escavations to renovate some building foundations to find traces/layers of older civilizations. A famous case was in the 90's when renovating the headquarters of Millenium Bank. The remains were preserved (under the building) and you can actually visit them nowadays[1]. [1] https://www.lisbonlux.com/lisbon/nucleo-arqueologico.html https://www.lisbonlux.com/lisbon/nucleo-arqueologico.html
  - swimfar 6y ago
    I found it to be a really interesting tour. I think it's free, as well.
- einpoklum 6y ago
  From a Middle-Eastern perspective, Rome has just recently been settled.
- diego_moita 6y ago
  But it was severely devastated by 2 earthquakes. The first was in 1531. The worst was in 1755, an huge tragedy that left marks in European culture (creation of seismology, a bit discussion on the vindication of God within the Enlightenment,...)
  - HorkHunter 6y ago
    Yeah in 1775 it happened during All Saints Day, and I think they still say "Todos os Santos não chegaram"which translates to something like "All saints were not even enough to save us"
owenversteeg 6y ago
What interests me the most is not so much the #1 oldest, but more those cities where the past is still visible, or the city is similar to the same one that stood there thousands of years ago. Specifically, I find Yerevan very interesting. If someone from 2,000 years ago stood there today, they'd certainly realize it was the same city: the same Mount Ararat towering over the city, the same river Hrazdan running by the city, the name is pronounced very similar (pronounced Erebuni vs. now pronounced Erevan.) If you traveled a bit forward in time, to 400-something CE, then a modern inhabitant of Yerevan could even read the ancient writing in the city! Compare that with cities like Puning, China (to quote Wikipedia: "The history of human settlement in Puning can be traced back to the Neolithic Age".) Rich history, but I guarantee that someone from 2,000 years ago would have no idea where they are. (That's certainly not all of China, though, many places haven't experienced that much change.) Anyone know more of these cities, where it'd be obvious to the ancient inhabitants that it was the same city?
- namdnay 6y ago
  Rome?
- ddeville 6y ago
  Rome, Jerusalem, Athens, maybe Istanbul.
  - dmurray 6y ago
    Giza?
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  Quite a few of the cities of Ancient Greece and its colonies have survived to this day. Obviously Athens and many places in Greece but not only. For example in France, Marseille and Nice (both Greek colonies) are 2,600 and 2,300 years old, respectively. The first inhabitants would definitely recognise them immediately today from the unique landscape (like Yerevan). As for Puning, it's not so much related to China's recent changes but to the landscape. Mountains are unique and don't change much or at all in 2,000 years. But in a plain there is nothing to distinguish the landscape apart from buildings.
Cyph0n 6y ago
As a Tunisian, I'm confused by why Carthage is not on the list. Yes, it was destroyed and rebuilt by the Romans, but the general vicinity has been continuously inhabited ever since. Actually, a few other Tunisian cities are missing that trace their origins back to late B.C./early A.D., such as Monastir, Mahdia, and El Jem. Any thoughts on this?
- naringas 6y ago
  you can probably add them? it's wikipedia after all
- mturmon 6y ago
  I wonder what their definition of "city" is ... it seems to differ from just "inhabited". They make a distinction somewhere between villages and cities.
- cmyr 6y ago
  Carthage is listed as "Tangier"? Unless it was just added.
  - Cyph0n 6y ago
    The note there lists that Tangier was founded by the Carthaginians. But Carthage itself was located near modern-day Tunis, the capital of Tunisia.
- netcan 6y ago
  Marhabat. This particular list is pretty strict on the "continuous" criteria. I guess when the Romans plowed salt into it, continuity was broken, for the purposes of this list. Carthage does make this list. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities_throughout_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities_through... It was the world's biggest city circa 300BC.
  - Cyph0n 6y ago
    Marahba! Yeah, it's either that, or the fact that Tunis (the new capital) was founded 10 miles away after the Umayyads took Carthage from the Byzantines (mentioned by u/scythe).
hirundo 6y ago
In the '70s and '80s when Japan was booming there was a popular meme that they were advantaged by having their cities destroyed in the war so were able to rebuild them along more modern lines. I don't know if it's true but it seems plausible. In Stranger in a Strange Land, Michael Valentine Smith talks about the Martian habit of abandoning places when the memories became too intense to tolerate. If we earthlings were repulsed by places with too much history such old places would have a limited lifespan. While we'd lose out on the context of history, we'd escape some of the deep ruts of blind tradition and be less buried by sedimentary layers of "that's how we've always done it." War is a terrible evil, but at least it tends to breaks up such ossified remains. If we defeat war, we should look for other mechanisms to till the soil to promote new growth.
- adamsea 6y ago
  What if the opposite is true?
- fhars 6y ago
  For unknown reasons, the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture used to burn down their settlements every 75-80 years: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burned_house_horizon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burned_house_horizon
waylandsmithers 6y ago
"Continuously" is a word that lets a lot of institutions claim to be the oldest or longest running thing. I feel like I've been to a dozen restaurants that make this claim.
deleted 6y ago
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aluminussoma 6y ago
With the world explored and mapped, it is hard to fathom new cities being built. Nevertheless, that will certainly happen in the future. What will the catalyst be? Will it be nuclear war, which devastates and contaminates an area for decades? Will it be disease that makes existing urban areas less desirable to live in? Will it be economic opportunity, as we discover new uses for land or a new way to use land? Space Travel? I see a small parallel to startups: it is easy but dangerous to say "there are no new ideas in that industry". Yet often some of the primary companies are those that survived the early "land grab" of customers.
cdubzzz 6y ago
Also interesting (from the "See also" section) -- List of oldest known surviving buildings[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_known_surviving_buildings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_known_surviving...
farhadhf 6y ago
The list doesn't seem to be complete, Shiraz has been inhibited since 2000BC and it's not listed on the page. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Shiraz https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Shiraz
AdmiralAsshat 6y ago
Since Damascus is on the list, it's worth noting that some of the building techniques that possibly originated thousands of years ago are still in use in some remote Syrian villages. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_roof_shapes#/media/File:Traditional_adobe_beehive_architecture_of_Syria.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_roof_shapes#/media/Fil... https://syrianvoicesmediationandart.wordpress.com/2016/04/04/syrian-beehive-dome-building-and-plans/comment-page-1/ https://syrianvoicesmediationandart.wordpress.com/2016/04/04...
minkeymaniac 6y ago
If you ever go to Pula, make sure to visit the Arena (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pula_Arena https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pula_Arena) and pass by Zlatna Vrata (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch_of_the_Sergii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch_of_the_Sergii) both are ~2000 year old
zwieback 6y ago
Cholula FTW! Oldest still inhabited city in the Americas and best hot sauce.
phkahler 6y ago
Reading through the comments I see people from all over the world offering insights about various places. Then I realised all the comments here are in English. There must be an equivalent for languages continuously spoken over time.
- maze-le 6y ago
  Languages change -- sometimes dramatically -- over the course of centuries. English wasn't even a thing until the 1100s or so (Middle English). It would be very hard to exchange thoughts and ideas with the people of this time -- not only because of the different cultural and technological contexts but also because of its pronunciation and phonology. Its predecessor: Anglo Saxon is even more distant from it. Try to read the passages here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English#Beowulf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English#Beowulf Latin (as an artificially conserved language) has not changed that much since Roman times, but it isn't a language that is actively used in everyday life -- so you cannot claim it is: "continuously spoken over time". Hebrew and Arabic could be interesting cases -- maybe someone more knowledgeable than me can chime in on these... But I assume ancient Hebrew and Arabic are also not mutually intelligible with the corresponding languages today.
  - jbay 6y ago
    Even for Latin, apparently Ecclesiastical (Church) Latin, which is more familiar to most people today, differs in pronunciation from Classical Latin. For example, Ecclesiastical Latin uses a soft 'c', where the ancient Romans would have used a hard 'c' -- Cicero's name would have been pronounced like "keekero" in his day, whereas most people now think of him as "Sissero". Although the Roman empire was large and diverse enough that Latin probably had quite a variety of dialects and maybe Ecclesiastical Latin was one of them. Hebrew is an unusual case because, like Latin, it was mostly a dead language that for centuries only continued to be used in religious and a few other contexts. It was revived in the 19th century. Because of its long period of cryostasis the parts that were preserved probably haven't changed that much, although necessarily it's expanded greatly into a living language.
  - Leherenn 6y ago
fit2rule 6y ago
Thats nice. What about the oldest school, though? Garbarnmumg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabarnmung https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabarnmung 28,000 years of teaching the next generation agriculture and animal husbandry.
smaili 6y ago
TIL San Diego is the oldest city on the West Coast and the birthplace of California!
lisper 6y ago
What is most striking to me about this list is how you can use it to trace the broad sweep of human habitation on the planet. The oldest continuously inhabited cities date back 5000 years and the youngest (in Oceania) only a few hundred. So for 5000 years humanity lived on a planet with unexplored and unexploited regions. That's all done now. The entire planet is now completely overrun with homo sapiens, but that project wasn't completed until very recently. Sydney only goes back to 1788 and Canberra to 1913, almost within living memory. I don't think humanity is anywhere near coming to grips with this new reality.
- austincheney 6y ago
  I don't get that impression. The cities listed fall into two required criteria: documented history and civilization. This does not account for neolithic settlements of which some grew quite large for their respective lack of centralized management. This is qualified by the list mentions some cities were neolithic settlements before they qualified for the status of "city" and some cities existed far earlier than the history available, as far back as 7000 BCE the theorized start of civilization. This does not account for civilizations that may have appeared earlier but failed before historical documents were written. People were all over the world at this time leaving in various states of habitation. The earliest surviving civilization was Mesopotamia at around 7000 BCE but the earliest known neolithic settlements were in the area of modern Czech Republic circa 45000 BCE. By the time civilian began to flourish there were neolithic settlements in many unrelated places of the world. People have been living in the northern polar region since well before the earliest neolithic settlements and did not civilize until recently and some remain uncivilized.
  - koheripbal 6y ago
    I think if you downgrade the definition of city to any grouping of animal skin tents, then the entire exercise loses meaning because those were everywhere.
    - perl4ever 6y ago
      On the other hand, before 3-4000 years ago, the largest "city" in the world probably wasn't even 100,000 people. So you go back far enough anywhere and the cities were more like villages if that. It's interesting that the biggest cities plateaued at about 1 million from about 100 BCE to 1800 CE, until the industrial revolution kicked in.
new_time 6y ago
While I don't see any examples of on this list, except perhaps for Pula, emerging archaeological evidence indicates that in the Balkans region around 7000 years ago massive towns (cities?) began emerging with up to 40,000 people living in some settlements. The homes were arranged in tight lots next to one another, with evidence for some homes even being 2 story structures. The inhabitants of these communities were the same Neolithic farmers who crossed from the Near East, over Anatolia into Greece and then up into the rest of Europe around 8000 years ago. They not only introduced farming to Europe, but also herding and domesticated cows and sheep. There is some linguistic evidence that the word Taurus (representing the bull in the Zodiac) is a remnant of the language these people spoke, which would make sense as they were the ones to introduce the bull to the ancestors of the Proto-Indo-European speakers.
- ardit33 6y ago
  The famous Pelasgian civilization, that we don't know much about....
throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
Somewhere roundabout EC2 is the remains of some religious building, with an office built over it. Walk past the big glass windows, double-take then blag your way in politely and admire it. It's a serious chunk of stonework that's literally been built around. It's so peculiar to see the juxtaposition. I think it's related to henry 8th's destructions. Does anyone know it? I did a search but couldn't find it, what I did find is quite interesting. Take a look at the top picture here https://symbolsandsecrets.london/page/21/ https://symbolsandsecrets.london/page/21/ Scroll down for some more of londinium and assorted london relics.
yongjik 6y ago
I guess that the criterion for inclusion is "does anyone have a vested interest in including their own city and is persistent enough to fight their way through edit wars." That is, it's a fun list, but shouldn't be considered authoritative of anything. E.g., Seoul shouldn't be there. The ancient capital of Wiryeseong was a separate city that was abandoned in the middle ages (in fact we aren't even sure exactly where it was), and the most likely location is on the other side of the river from Seoul's old city area: the (suspected) Wiryeseong area wasn't part of Seoul until 1963.
TriNetra 6y ago
Indian history hasn't been well researched because of various reasons. However, recent efforts are pushing back continuous settlement dates by multi-thousand of years. For instance: Varanasi is in above wiki link with 1200 BC as inhabited since. However [0] pushes it back to at least 4500 BC. 0: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/Varanasi-is-as-old-as-Indus-valley-civilization-finds-IIT-KGP-study/articleshow/51146196.cms https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/Varanasi-is... >>> The results that have come from a detailed geo-exploration (exploration conducted through GPS technology) conducted by seven IIT-Kgp departments, tracing the different stages through which civilization progressed, and how Varanasi has been able to maintain continuity as a living civilization, unlike comparable seats of human settlement in the world. The researchers have dug 100-metre-deep boring holes all over Varanasi to conclude that there is evidence of continuous settlement at least till 2000BC. There are enough indications that by the time the data collection is over, there would be enough to prove that this date can be pushed back to about 4500BC.The oldest part of this civilisation has been traced to the Gomati Sangam area of Varanasi, as indicated by the underground layers that have already been tested.
- c54 6y ago
  Why hasn’t Indian history been better researched as you say? Curious about this.
  - riazrizvi 6y ago
    It’s often because of political influence campaigns that history is actually destroyed, and in such periods there is no appetite for objective historical research. If you are a Muslim ruler trying to convert your subjects and the Sun Worshippers are leading a resistance then destroying their 700 year old temple that reinforces their identity is a no brainer. This type of thing is widespread throughout the world [1] so there’s no reason to doubt it has a much longer history than records can follow. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_destroyed_heritage https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_destroyed_heritage
  - dilippkumar 6y ago
    I started studying Indian history and I immediately ran into problems. The first one is language - in the region I am interested in (the southern parts of India) - primary sources appear in several different languages. It's not sufficient to have passing familiarity with a language - a ton of these ancient writers were poets trying to out-do each other with their skills at crafting verses. To research Indian history, one must learn several languages. As someone who isn't trying to actively research history, secondary sources suffice for me. But then, one runs into the next big hurdle there. There have been very few authors writing about south Indian history post Independence. In 1928 (if I recall correctly), someone at the University of Madras wrote a PhD thesis on the Pallavas. I haven't been able to find any other material focused on the Pallavas published since then. Oh, and the 1928 PhD thesis - there's only a handful of those copies in the really large libraries around the world. A low quality scan of one of these copies has made it to the internet - and that remains my best source of information on the Pallava dynasty. Then there are people like the Khalbaras - a bunch of rulers who came out of nowhere and ended up dominating 3 superpowers in that region. Yet, these guys didn't leave behind any historical record and only passing references to them as "the imprisoners of 3 crown princes" remain as tombstones and signposts for a group of rulers who would have to take down armies of war elephants multiple times to get to that point. There are also open problems of Chronology in several important periods (for example, the era covered by the Sangam literature - Karikala and all those guys). This is basically a group of poems that record history in disconnected joints. (It's not known how much of this is real history and how much is invented by poets). We have the pieces of a puzzle, with possibly some fake pieces, but we don't know how you'd arrange them in a timeline. And then, there's the wars. Anyone who studies Indian history will quickly realize that Gandhi is an extreme anomaly. In southern India, it was a matter of pride for a king to die in battle. Imagine a culture where the rulers have cultural incentives to be suicidally belligerent (with War Elephants!!!). Now imagine a world where that is the cultural norm for over a thousand years. These rulers were warriors and the literature that they encouraged were mostly poets who wrote verses praising various military exploits. Several of these kingdoms emerge and disappear all the time - and they all chose different languages as the court language, several of them invented their own alphabets (looking at you Pallavas), they all straight up lied in several records. It's a lifetime's task to sort out 300 years of history for an area half the size of Germany. Then, to make matters worse, almost all historical artifacts from south India were removed from the temples and forts that they have been found and made their way to various collectors and museums in Britan during the Britsh Raj. If you want to study south Indian history, a trip to a museum in London will give you a lot more than walking around endlessly in South India. Then there's the lack of funding. It's absolutely embarrassing how little the various historians in India earn. Lately, I've been finding more books by historians in America (and even Japan) than those written by people in India. Then you have the frauds like Sanjeev Sanyal who destroy history by mixing up well established history and his own opinions on history and using the authenticity of the accepted history to add credibility to his baseless opinions. Studying Indian history is hard.
mgarfias 6y ago
missing taos nm
zelphirkalt 6y ago
This list seems quite incomplete. Check for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengdu#Early_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengdu#Early_history There are probably more cities like this.
bytematic 6y ago
These cities are beautiful open air museums
nanna 6y ago
In the UK there's a common derision of tourists from (sorry but) the USA who find themselves dumbfounded by the age of some rickety old pub from the eighteenth century they've tracked down. This Wikipedia page emphasises how little this old rock's got on the rest of the world. Apart from Australasia. Though seriously, I appreciate that Oceana's indigenous peoples are highly nomadic, but is it really the case that there's no continuous settlement there until European colonisation?
- TheGallopedHigh 6y ago
  Yes I think the idea here is that the distances over seas to reach islands took many many years until Polynesians delevoped the necessary skills and tech were able to navigate them and settle the lands. I don’t think any archeological evdince have been found otherwise.
- namenotrequired 6y ago
  > is it really the case that there's no continuous settlement there until European colonisation? Settlement yes, city no.
Zaheer 6y ago
This map is a nice visualization of the oldest cities: https://i.redd.it/qc23w3nl85u31.png https://i.redd.it/qc23w3nl85u31.png
seddin 6y ago
I'm incredibly impressed to find that Tangier is ther third oldest continously inhabited city in Africa, I go through it almost every year to visit Morocco, such a beautiful country.
Jagat 6y ago
Interesting that Marakkesh is listed as 1070CE. Marakkesh is where the 'gladiator' Maximus fights, and moves to Rome from, in the movie. That's during the reign of Commodus, which places it at around 190CE.
awiesenhofer 6y ago
Wow, this is a great example of a rather terrible wikipedia page. Grouping it by continent. No mention of the Middle East at all (Erbil anyone?). Oceania is just a list of every major city in AUS/NZ, even listing 1913s Canberra while omitting basically every other country in the region. Not trying to diminish the work that went into it so far, but it is a great example to always keep in mind how wikipedia works, how its content is built and to never trust it as a source in itself.
- EdwardDiego 6y ago
  And on the NZ side, it calls Bluff a city. It's a town (whose population peaked at 3000) near Invercargill, which is itself, only just a city. https://www.worldhistoryofbluff.org.nz https://www.worldhistoryofbluff.org.nz
RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
We have a tendency to group all ancient cities together in our minds, but the difference between Luxor/Thebes(3200BC) and Rome(753BC) is about the same as between Rome and New York City(1624).
openlowcode 6y ago
Stupid comment maybe but I wished there was a global list. I was surprised though at the limited number of sites inhabited continuously since earlier than 2000BCE. I would believe that good natural sites (natural harbors with a river) would have been continuously inhabited since neolithic.
zaarn 6y ago
I live in one of the cities mentioned on this page (Augsburg), I think it's pointless to argue of how much is still around from the old ages and if people respect it. The age of a city builds a certain character on a city, the quirks and things that go on for some reason that has been forgotten since before America was discovered. Puts some perspective into "for an american, 200 years is a long time", doesn't it?
JoeAltmaier 6y ago
Jesus folks are getting owly. Yesterday I mentioned here, that in addition to inhabited cities there are very old nomadic populations, some very much older that the oldest continuously inhabited city. And got totally smashed by bad feedback, and eventually flagged (?!) for saying this. What gives? HN is normally such a tolerant place, full of curious people. Is this topic so emotionally toxic that no alternate dialog is tolerated? I'm honestly confused.
- Octopodes 6y ago
  >owly I learn the strangest vocabulary on this website.
new_mexican 6y ago
Aztec and Taos in New Mexico have been inhabited since 1000ad. They are considered cities, despite how small they are

323 points by ag8 6y ago

There is some definite bias here. I can assure you that San Diego was inhabited by the native people long before 1789. They might not have called it San Diego, but they certainly had a concept of settlement. 1789 is more like their colonization year, not their settlement year.

reallydontask 6y ago

I like how Rome is listed as 753 BCE. A lot of guess work on these dates

smitty1e 6y ago
Best estimate, until the next archaeological discovery. As long as we don't equate estimates with facts, we're good.
- machello13 6y ago
  If you're suggesting that the 753 BC date is archaeological, you're incorrect. 753 BC is the legendary date. There's archaeological evidence of habitation on the hills of Rome earlier than that.
  - corebit 6y ago
    Yes but when did it become a "city" versus just a caveman camp?
    - netsharc 6y ago
      When do you have a handful of sand? If you take 1 grain of sand and put it in your hand, that's not a handful. Same with 2, 3. How many grains of sand constitutes a handful?
      - levosmetalo 6y ago
        42
      - owenversteeg 6y ago
        In the example of a handful: the average "handful" is around 100-50mL. Say we define a "handful" as 50mL +/- 1 order of magnitude. On the high end, you have Andre the Giant, who could easily fit a 12 oz beer in his hand no problem (354 mL.) On the low end, you have children; even kids with small hands can hold 5mL. --- Sure, there's some ambiguity, and of course there's not a hard number on it. But that doesn't mean you can't tell if something is a city. Nobody would argue that, for example, NYC isn't a city, or London or Amsterdam or whatnot. As the world population grew, so did the definition of "city". 12,000 years ago, there were somewhere around ten million people in the entire world, so a definition of somewhere in the neighborhood of 0.1% of the world population (10,000 people) for a city seems reasonable, plus or minus one order of magnitude. I'll call it Owen's Law :) That holds for today: 0.1% of the world population is 7.8 million, plus or minus 1 order of magnitude - I'd say that's a fine definition for a city. In any case, it works very well today: at the large end you have cities like Chongqing with 30+ million in the municipality, and at the small end you have cities like Rotterdam with around 700k people in the city proper. To check if my rule of thumb worked: At the year 1, assuming 200 million people in the world, that's setting a city around 200,000 people, plus or minus 1 order of magnitude. The largest city in the world was Rome, between 1MM-400k people; all the top 10 largest cities fell within the rule. - It holds at the year 1000 (world pop. ~300MM, largest city Córdoba with 400k, smaller cities like Nimes with 56k.) - It holds at the year 1500 (world pop. 500MM, largest city Constantinople 250k, smaller cities like Palermo, Florence, Madrid, Moscow with ~70k.) - It holds at 1800 (world pop. ~1 billion, largest cities Vienna and London ~1MM, smaller cities like Berlin, Lyon, Venice 150k.) - It holds at 1900 (world pop. 1.6 billion, largest city London 5.5MM, smaller cities Naples, Madrid, Amsterdam ~500k.)
      - dredmorbius 6y ago
        Sorites Paradox. The fallacy lies in the question, that a collection of sand is either individual grains aggregated, or a heap. One response is that "heap" describes not quantity but behaviour, or even more crucially, useful mental models. The old parable of grains of rice doubled on successive squares of a chessboard gives a useful visual image, here: http://all-funny.info/rice-chessboard-story http://all-funny.info/rice-chessboard-story I'd argue that the transition between "grains" and "heap" occurs somewhere between 16 and 128 grains, the 6th to 8th squares (2^5 to 2^7). Sixteen grains is still, mostly, individual grains. 128 grains is almost certainly a heap. In urban geography, urbanisations are virtually always classed by the log, usually base ten, of their population. This gives settlements of class 0 (one inhabitant) to about class 7.6 (roughly 40 millions of souls, greater Tokyo). Distribution nearly perfectly follows a power distribution -- frequency distribution is linear with the log size. Going back through human history, the first settlements we might have termed "cities" may well have been only a few hundreds of inhabitants, but they would have dominated their regions. Anthropologists typically identify Uruk as the first settlement recognised as a city. "Many ancient cities had only modest populations, often under 5,000 persons." https://www.ancient.eu/city/ https://www.ancient.eu/city/ A city is a permanent settlement of size and complexity which acts as a city.
  - smitty1e 6y ago
    My actual point is that archaeological estimates are like epidemiological models: smart folks offering a snapshot of what they know. Until that knowledge is over-written.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- blotter_paper 6y ago
  The column next to that date notes that there is village structure dated to the 9th century BC; the 753 date is actually downright mythical rather than archeological, but where some mythical dates exaggerate antiquity (e.g. lists of Sumerian kings) this mythical date cuts antiquity short to give city founding credit to the (probably entirely mythical?) Romulus rather than give recognition to the prior Greek settlement on the Palantine Hill (which Roman sources mentioned, while still claiming to be only as old as Romulus' city). It's an odd cultural carry over from Roman times to see in a wikipedia page, recognized in one column and ignored in the one prior.
  - swasheck 6y ago
    much of rome's ancient history is "mythical" in that it the only historical evidence we have are the legends handed down from that time. many of them appear to be attempts to reconcile the status of the early republic with the foundational history of the village/town/location of rome. i loved reading the rise of rome, by anthony everitt. https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Rome-Making-Worlds-Greatest/dp/0812978153 https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Rome-Making-Worlds-Greatest/dp/0...
- alxlaz 6y ago
  That's not an estimate based on archaeological discovery, it's the classical date given by Varro Reatinus, which he took from Titus Atticus (I'm mentioning Varro Reatinus simply because this timeline is now called the "Varronian timeline"). Titus Atticus came up with it based on various traditions and works available to him, but it's really just one of the dates that have been proposed by people in that age. It's the most common traditional date today largely because of a pretty complicated tradition of politics, and of legal and written works, that ends with Joseph Scaliger in the 16th century. It became, more or less, the "official" chronology used by the Roman state at one point, and it ended up inscribed on Augustus' Arch and on the Fasti Capitolini. But that's about it. In fact, it's likely that everyone even back then knew at least a good part of it was made up, since it was based on a bunch of traditional dates that didn't quite add up, and Tittus Atticus (edit: or Varro Reatinus? I don't remember which one) had to insert various "dark years" and "anarchic periods" in-between so that his chronology would match the timeline of consulships. It's hard to put a date on it, because Rome likely developed out of several villages in the region. The oldest arcaheological evidence from the area is way older than the 8th century BC. The Romans themselves didn't have anything other than a best guess about it, either (and several were put forth, not just this one). Edit: yep, I'm really fun at parties!
codq 6y ago
The age claims listed are generally disputed. Differences in opinion can result from different definitions of "city" as well as "continuous habitation" and historical evidence is often disputed. Caveats (and sources) to the validity of each claim are discussed in the "Notes" column. Literally the introduction.
riffraff 6y ago
Not only that, it's precisely the 21st of April, Rome's birthday just went by :)
- viklove 6y ago
  Turns out Rome was built in a day. Specifically, the 21st of April.
  - sedatk 6y ago
    No, that was the date of launch, along with a keynote from the caesar.
    - saalweachter 6y ago
      Rex.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago

This leaves out nomadic populations that have had continuous populations for thousands of years. E.g. in Canada, 14,000 years. Because they can't put a pin in a map. So some really old, continuously inhabited areas in the world. Blows away the named ones. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/one-oldest-north-american-settlements-found-180962750/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/one-oldest-north-a... {edit} wow who knew there were so many militant amateur archaeologists, or that the mere mention of nomads would create such a passionate backlash! Folks are getting really owly in their isolation I guess.

theandrewbailey 6y ago
Nomads, practically by definition, do not continuously inhabit cities for long periods.
- JamesG124 6y ago
  the space they occupy can be conceptualised as a city
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  ...and because they don't have a pin on the map, are ignored. As was my point. No worries; being ignored and marginalized is among the least troubles they have.
  - DeusExMachina 6y ago
    Does that mean that we have to force them into any list even if they don't belong there, just to be politically correct? This is a list about cities, not civilizations. Nomadic populations can be included in lists that talk about those topics. There can also be a list of "oldest nomadic populations" from which cities are excluded.
    - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
      Hey Mr. Strawman! I just made an observation - there are many older stable populations, than older stable named cities. Keep your owly comments to yourself.

ginko 6y ago

Splitting these by continent is somewhat disingenuous since many of the oldest civilizations and settlements are at the intersection of Africa, Asia and Europe.

laurent123456 6y ago
There are many awful lists like this on Wikipedia as it seems the criteria for them are a lot less strict than for articles. I guess whoever creates the list can argue that each individual item is sourced, even though the selection of items and their organisation is original research [0], and thus should not be allowed. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research
- barbegal 6y ago
  I agree, I don't mind lists like "Largest countries" as that is fairly definitive but when you get into subjective lists of things that are hard to properly define, measure or record like "costliest hurricane damage"[1], "longest-living organisms"[2] or "deadliest animals"[3] then the articles become a joke. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atlantic_hurricane_records https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atlantic_hurricane_rec... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest-living_organisms#Animals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest-living_organis... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadliest_animals_to_humans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadliest_animals_to_h...
  - y-c-o-m-b 6y ago
    How would you approach those things? Do we altogether avoid making those lists because they don't fit a strict criteria? I think they serve a very useful purpose and taken in the correct context, are incredibly informative. At the very least it stimulates curiosity which is a positive effect in itself.
    - dwohnitmok 6y ago

impendia 6y ago

I had the opportunity to visit Byblos, Lebanon and spend a few hours walking around. It was fascinating to me how many different civilizations had left physical imprints: Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, European Crusaders. I highly recommend a visit to any city on this list.

bald 6y ago
as a native German, I can say you might want to skip Neuss, you won't miss out on a lot :P
netcan 6y ago
Don't forget Phoenicians, Assyrians & such. They were the local cultures. Those others were imperial rulers.
ronyfadel 6y ago
I’m from a town nearby. It’s a shame how the ruins have been left filthy and unattended. A Phoenician king’s tomb from multiple millenia BCE is littered with cans of soda and plastic bottles. When I brought friends from Europe to see Lebanon, we saw, I kid you not, the tour guide throwing an empty plastic water bottle down the crater that held sarcophagi.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
anonu 6y ago
Phoenicians as well. And the Canaanites [1] before them. Byblos is indeed an ancient city. It's believed that the first inhabitants were there around 8000BCE. Today's vestiges in Byblos are maybe younger than 500BCE though.. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaan
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

d_silin 6y ago

I happened to be born in one of those cities. AMA :)

macewindu 6y ago
which one?
np_tedious 6y ago
OK. First question: which one?
- d_silin 6y ago
  Where: Belgorod-Dnestrovsky (ex Ancient Greek colony) on the Black Sea coast.
egypturnash 6y ago
Have you lived in much younger cities? How does the weight of history in the old city compare? Do you prefer to live in a younger city, or an elder one, and why? I grew up in New Orleans and every other US city I’ve lived in has felt kind of... unmoored... in a certain way, what history there is in much of the rest of the country has been thoroughly torn down, and it’s not like there’s much history in a 1940s building yet anyway.
- InitialLastName 6y ago
  Have you lived in any of the older cities on the East Coast? The Philadelphia and Boston areas have an enormous amount of history still present and visible, especially in the outskirts that haven't faced as much commercial pressure. Even downtown in both cities there's quite a lot that's been maintained from the colonial era.
  - iso1631 6y ago
    I do feel that America makes a much bigger thing about recent history than the rest of the world - there feels far more history in Boston and New York than in Chester (my nearest historical towns), despite the latter being founded in AD79. The local cafe I (used to) go to for lunch at weekends was built in 1583 (the building on that site had burnt down in a fire). There's some history at the start of the menu, and sure it's older than most of the houses in town, but it's no means unique and there are older buildings in town (not many as most burnt down in the 1583 fire)

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

glitchc 6y ago

This list seems hardly complete. There’s no mention of Central Asia for instance.

andybak 6y ago
I spotted Afghanistan which is pretty damn Central Asian.
InitialLastName 6y ago
Do you have a city to propose? Feel free to add it to the list, especially as it shouldn't be too hard to check the age using the Wikipedia article on the city.

jasonswett 6y ago

What about London?

egypturnash 6y ago
Wikipedia’s date for that is 43 AD, there’s a long list of European cities that stops a lifetime before that.
- iso1631 6y ago
  By splitting into different regions it masks the difference in numbers and age across the world. A list of "oldest cities" which contains places like Canbera and Detroit, but not places like London and Venice, seems very odd
- m-i-l 6y ago
  > "Wikipedia’s date for that is 43 AD" There was a story a couple of weeks ago[0] about pottery dating from around 3600BCE being found at a site in Shoreditch (which was being excavated for the new Amazon HQ), suggesting London may have been inhabited considerably longer than previously thought. [0] https://www.mola.org.uk/blog/largest-group-early-neolithic-pottery-ever-found-london-dated-using-new-technique https://www.mola.org.uk/blog/largest-group-early-neolithic-p... & https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2178-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2178-z
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    That wouldn't be "London city" that would be "a village which the latter settlement of London expanded to encompass"; which is significantly different. Not longest inhabited areas, but continuously inhabited city.
ElCapitanMarkla 6y ago
It’s odd that London isn’t listed yet there are a bunch that are only a couple of hundred years old
einarfd 6y ago

HorkHunter 6y ago

So, Lisbon is older than Rome, TIL!

galfarragem 6y ago
It is very common, in downtown Lisbon, when doing some escavations to renovate some building foundations to find traces/layers of older civilizations. A famous case was in the 90's when renovating the headquarters of Millenium Bank. The remains were preserved (under the building) and you can actually visit them nowadays[1]. [1] https://www.lisbonlux.com/lisbon/nucleo-arqueologico.html https://www.lisbonlux.com/lisbon/nucleo-arqueologico.html
- swimfar 6y ago
  I found it to be a really interesting tour. I think it's free, as well.
einpoklum 6y ago
From a Middle-Eastern perspective, Rome has just recently been settled.
diego_moita 6y ago
But it was severely devastated by 2 earthquakes. The first was in 1531. The worst was in 1755, an huge tragedy that left marks in European culture (creation of seismology, a bit discussion on the vindication of God within the Enlightenment,...)
- HorkHunter 6y ago
  Yeah in 1775 it happened during All Saints Day, and I think they still say "Todos os Santos não chegaram"which translates to something like "All saints were not even enough to save us"

owenversteeg 6y ago

What interests me the most is not so much the #1 oldest, but more those cities where the past is still visible, or the city is similar to the same one that stood there thousands of years ago. Specifically, I find Yerevan very interesting. If someone from 2,000 years ago stood there today, they'd certainly realize it was the same city: the same Mount Ararat towering over the city, the same river Hrazdan running by the city, the name is pronounced very similar (pronounced Erebuni vs. now pronounced Erevan.) If you traveled a bit forward in time, to 400-something CE, then a modern inhabitant of Yerevan could even read the ancient writing in the city! Compare that with cities like Puning, China (to quote Wikipedia: "The history of human settlement in Puning can be traced back to the Neolithic Age".) Rich history, but I guarantee that someone from 2,000 years ago would have no idea where they are. (That's certainly not all of China, though, many places haven't experienced that much change.) Anyone know more of these cities, where it'd be obvious to the ancient inhabitants that it was the same city?

namdnay 6y ago
Rome?
ddeville 6y ago
Rome, Jerusalem, Athens, maybe Istanbul.
- dmurray 6y ago
  Giza?
mytailorisrich 6y ago
Quite a few of the cities of Ancient Greece and its colonies have survived to this day. Obviously Athens and many places in Greece but not only. For example in France, Marseille and Nice (both Greek colonies) are 2,600 and 2,300 years old, respectively. The first inhabitants would definitely recognise them immediately today from the unique landscape (like Yerevan). As for Puning, it's not so much related to China's recent changes but to the landscape. Mountains are unique and don't change much or at all in 2,000 years. But in a plain there is nothing to distinguish the landscape apart from buildings.

Cyph0n 6y ago

As a Tunisian, I'm confused by why Carthage is not on the list. Yes, it was destroyed and rebuilt by the Romans, but the general vicinity has been continuously inhabited ever since. Actually, a few other Tunisian cities are missing that trace their origins back to late B.C./early A.D., such as Monastir, Mahdia, and El Jem. Any thoughts on this?

naringas 6y ago
you can probably add them? it's wikipedia after all
mturmon 6y ago
I wonder what their definition of "city" is ... it seems to differ from just "inhabited". They make a distinction somewhere between villages and cities.
cmyr 6y ago
Carthage is listed as "Tangier"? Unless it was just added.
- Cyph0n 6y ago
  The note there lists that Tangier was founded by the Carthaginians. But Carthage itself was located near modern-day Tunis, the capital of Tunisia.
netcan 6y ago
Marhabat. This particular list is pretty strict on the "continuous" criteria. I guess when the Romans plowed salt into it, continuity was broken, for the purposes of this list. Carthage does make this list. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities_throughout_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities_through... It was the world's biggest city circa 300BC.
- Cyph0n 6y ago
  Marahba! Yeah, it's either that, or the fact that Tunis (the new capital) was founded 10 miles away after the Umayyads took Carthage from the Byzantines (mentioned by u/scythe).

hirundo 6y ago

In the '70s and '80s when Japan was booming there was a popular meme that they were advantaged by having their cities destroyed in the war so were able to rebuild them along more modern lines. I don't know if it's true but it seems plausible. In Stranger in a Strange Land, Michael Valentine Smith talks about the Martian habit of abandoning places when the memories became too intense to tolerate. If we earthlings were repulsed by places with too much history such old places would have a limited lifespan. While we'd lose out on the context of history, we'd escape some of the deep ruts of blind tradition and be less buried by sedimentary layers of "that's how we've always done it." War is a terrible evil, but at least it tends to breaks up such ossified remains. If we defeat war, we should look for other mechanisms to till the soil to promote new growth.

adamsea 6y ago
What if the opposite is true?
fhars 6y ago
For unknown reasons, the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture used to burn down their settlements every 75-80 years: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burned_house_horizon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burned_house_horizon

waylandsmithers 6y ago

"Continuously" is a word that lets a lot of institutions claim to be the oldest or longest running thing. I feel like I've been to a dozen restaurants that make this claim.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

aluminussoma 6y ago

With the world explored and mapped, it is hard to fathom new cities being built. Nevertheless, that will certainly happen in the future. What will the catalyst be? Will it be nuclear war, which devastates and contaminates an area for decades? Will it be disease that makes existing urban areas less desirable to live in? Will it be economic opportunity, as we discover new uses for land or a new way to use land? Space Travel? I see a small parallel to startups: it is easy but dangerous to say "there are no new ideas in that industry". Yet often some of the primary companies are those that survived the early "land grab" of customers.

cdubzzz 6y ago

Also interesting (from the "See also" section) -- List of oldest known surviving buildings[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_known_surviving_buildings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_known_surviving...

farhadhf 6y ago

The list doesn't seem to be complete, Shiraz has been inhibited since 2000BC and it's not listed on the page. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Shiraz https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Shiraz

AdmiralAsshat 6y ago

Since Damascus is on the list, it's worth noting that some of the building techniques that possibly originated thousands of years ago are still in use in some remote Syrian villages. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_roof_shapes#/media/File:Traditional_adobe_beehive_architecture_of_Syria.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_roof_shapes#/media/Fil... https://syrianvoicesmediationandart.wordpress.com/2016/04/04/syrian-beehive-dome-building-and-plans/comment-page-1/ https://syrianvoicesmediationandart.wordpress.com/2016/04/04...

minkeymaniac 6y ago

If you ever go to Pula, make sure to visit the Arena (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pula_Arena https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pula_Arena) and pass by Zlatna Vrata (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch_of_the_Sergii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch_of_the_Sergii) both are ~2000 year old

zwieback 6y ago

Cholula FTW! Oldest still inhabited city in the Americas and best hot sauce.

phkahler 6y ago

Reading through the comments I see people from all over the world offering insights about various places. Then I realised all the comments here are in English. There must be an equivalent for languages continuously spoken over time.

maze-le 6y ago
Languages change -- sometimes dramatically -- over the course of centuries. English wasn't even a thing until the 1100s or so (Middle English). It would be very hard to exchange thoughts and ideas with the people of this time -- not only because of the different cultural and technological contexts but also because of its pronunciation and phonology. Its predecessor: Anglo Saxon is even more distant from it. Try to read the passages here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English#Beowulf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English#Beowulf Latin (as an artificially conserved language) has not changed that much since Roman times, but it isn't a language that is actively used in everyday life -- so you cannot claim it is: "continuously spoken over time". Hebrew and Arabic could be interesting cases -- maybe someone more knowledgeable than me can chime in on these... But I assume ancient Hebrew and Arabic are also not mutually intelligible with the corresponding languages today.
- jbay 6y ago
  Even for Latin, apparently Ecclesiastical (Church) Latin, which is more familiar to most people today, differs in pronunciation from Classical Latin. For example, Ecclesiastical Latin uses a soft 'c', where the ancient Romans would have used a hard 'c' -- Cicero's name would have been pronounced like "keekero" in his day, whereas most people now think of him as "Sissero". Although the Roman empire was large and diverse enough that Latin probably had quite a variety of dialects and maybe Ecclesiastical Latin was one of them. Hebrew is an unusual case because, like Latin, it was mostly a dead language that for centuries only continued to be used in religious and a few other contexts. It was revived in the 19th century. Because of its long period of cryostasis the parts that were preserved probably haven't changed that much, although necessarily it's expanded greatly into a living language.
- Leherenn 6y ago

fit2rule 6y ago

Thats nice. What about the oldest school, though? Garbarnmumg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabarnmung https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabarnmung 28,000 years of teaching the next generation agriculture and animal husbandry.

smaili 6y ago

TIL San Diego is the oldest city on the West Coast and the birthplace of California!

lisper 6y ago

What is most striking to me about this list is how you can use it to trace the broad sweep of human habitation on the planet. The oldest continuously inhabited cities date back 5000 years and the youngest (in Oceania) only a few hundred. So for 5000 years humanity lived on a planet with unexplored and unexploited regions. That's all done now. The entire planet is now completely overrun with homo sapiens, but that project wasn't completed until very recently. Sydney only goes back to 1788 and Canberra to 1913, almost within living memory. I don't think humanity is anywhere near coming to grips with this new reality.

austincheney 6y ago
I don't get that impression. The cities listed fall into two required criteria: documented history and civilization. This does not account for neolithic settlements of which some grew quite large for their respective lack of centralized management. This is qualified by the list mentions some cities were neolithic settlements before they qualified for the status of "city" and some cities existed far earlier than the history available, as far back as 7000 BCE the theorized start of civilization. This does not account for civilizations that may have appeared earlier but failed before historical documents were written. People were all over the world at this time leaving in various states of habitation. The earliest surviving civilization was Mesopotamia at around 7000 BCE but the earliest known neolithic settlements were in the area of modern Czech Republic circa 45000 BCE. By the time civilian began to flourish there were neolithic settlements in many unrelated places of the world. People have been living in the northern polar region since well before the earliest neolithic settlements and did not civilize until recently and some remain uncivilized.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  I think if you downgrade the definition of city to any grouping of animal skin tents, then the entire exercise loses meaning because those were everywhere.
  - perl4ever 6y ago
    On the other hand, before 3-4000 years ago, the largest "city" in the world probably wasn't even 100,000 people. So you go back far enough anywhere and the cities were more like villages if that. It's interesting that the biggest cities plateaued at about 1 million from about 100 BCE to 1800 CE, until the industrial revolution kicked in.

new_time 6y ago

While I don't see any examples of on this list, except perhaps for Pula, emerging archaeological evidence indicates that in the Balkans region around 7000 years ago massive towns (cities?) began emerging with up to 40,000 people living in some settlements. The homes were arranged in tight lots next to one another, with evidence for some homes even being 2 story structures. The inhabitants of these communities were the same Neolithic farmers who crossed from the Near East, over Anatolia into Greece and then up into the rest of Europe around 8000 years ago. They not only introduced farming to Europe, but also herding and domesticated cows and sheep. There is some linguistic evidence that the word Taurus (representing the bull in the Zodiac) is a remnant of the language these people spoke, which would make sense as they were the ones to introduce the bull to the ancestors of the Proto-Indo-European speakers.

ardit33 6y ago
The famous Pelasgian civilization, that we don't know much about....

throwaway_pdp09 6y ago

Somewhere roundabout EC2 is the remains of some religious building, with an office built over it. Walk past the big glass windows, double-take then blag your way in politely and admire it. It's a serious chunk of stonework that's literally been built around. It's so peculiar to see the juxtaposition. I think it's related to henry 8th's destructions. Does anyone know it? I did a search but couldn't find it, what I did find is quite interesting. Take a look at the top picture here https://symbolsandsecrets.london/page/21/ https://symbolsandsecrets.london/page/21/ Scroll down for some more of londinium and assorted london relics.

yongjik 6y ago

I guess that the criterion for inclusion is "does anyone have a vested interest in including their own city and is persistent enough to fight their way through edit wars." That is, it's a fun list, but shouldn't be considered authoritative of anything. E.g., Seoul shouldn't be there. The ancient capital of Wiryeseong was a separate city that was abandoned in the middle ages (in fact we aren't even sure exactly where it was), and the most likely location is on the other side of the river from Seoul's old city area: the (suspected) Wiryeseong area wasn't part of Seoul until 1963.

TriNetra 6y ago

Indian history hasn't been well researched because of various reasons. However, recent efforts are pushing back continuous settlement dates by multi-thousand of years. For instance: Varanasi is in above wiki link with 1200 BC as inhabited since. However [0] pushes it back to at least 4500 BC. 0: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/Varanasi-is-as-old-as-Indus-valley-civilization-finds-IIT-KGP-study/articleshow/51146196.cms https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/Varanasi-is... >>> The results that have come from a detailed geo-exploration (exploration conducted through GPS technology) conducted by seven IIT-Kgp departments, tracing the different stages through which civilization progressed, and how Varanasi has been able to maintain continuity as a living civilization, unlike comparable seats of human settlement in the world. The researchers have dug 100-metre-deep boring holes all over Varanasi to conclude that there is evidence of continuous settlement at least till 2000BC. There are enough indications that by the time the data collection is over, there would be enough to prove that this date can be pushed back to about 4500BC.The oldest part of this civilisation has been traced to the Gomati Sangam area of Varanasi, as indicated by the underground layers that have already been tested.

c54 6y ago
Why hasn’t Indian history been better researched as you say? Curious about this.
- riazrizvi 6y ago
  It’s often because of political influence campaigns that history is actually destroyed, and in such periods there is no appetite for objective historical research. If you are a Muslim ruler trying to convert your subjects and the Sun Worshippers are leading a resistance then destroying their 700 year old temple that reinforces their identity is a no brainer. This type of thing is widespread throughout the world [1] so there’s no reason to doubt it has a much longer history than records can follow. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_destroyed_heritage https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_destroyed_heritage
- dilippkumar 6y ago
  I started studying Indian history and I immediately ran into problems. The first one is language - in the region I am interested in (the southern parts of India) - primary sources appear in several different languages. It's not sufficient to have passing familiarity with a language - a ton of these ancient writers were poets trying to out-do each other with their skills at crafting verses. To research Indian history, one must learn several languages. As someone who isn't trying to actively research history, secondary sources suffice for me. But then, one runs into the next big hurdle there. There have been very few authors writing about south Indian history post Independence. In 1928 (if I recall correctly), someone at the University of Madras wrote a PhD thesis on the Pallavas. I haven't been able to find any other material focused on the Pallavas published since then. Oh, and the 1928 PhD thesis - there's only a handful of those copies in the really large libraries around the world. A low quality scan of one of these copies has made it to the internet - and that remains my best source of information on the Pallava dynasty. Then there are people like the Khalbaras - a bunch of rulers who came out of nowhere and ended up dominating 3 superpowers in that region. Yet, these guys didn't leave behind any historical record and only passing references to them as "the imprisoners of 3 crown princes" remain as tombstones and signposts for a group of rulers who would have to take down armies of war elephants multiple times to get to that point. There are also open problems of Chronology in several important periods (for example, the era covered by the Sangam literature - Karikala and all those guys). This is basically a group of poems that record history in disconnected joints. (It's not known how much of this is real history and how much is invented by poets). We have the pieces of a puzzle, with possibly some fake pieces, but we don't know how you'd arrange them in a timeline. And then, there's the wars. Anyone who studies Indian history will quickly realize that Gandhi is an extreme anomaly. In southern India, it was a matter of pride for a king to die in battle. Imagine a culture where the rulers have cultural incentives to be suicidally belligerent (with War Elephants!!!). Now imagine a world where that is the cultural norm for over a thousand years. These rulers were warriors and the literature that they encouraged were mostly poets who wrote verses praising various military exploits. Several of these kingdoms emerge and disappear all the time - and they all chose different languages as the court language, several of them invented their own alphabets (looking at you Pallavas), they all straight up lied in several records. It's a lifetime's task to sort out 300 years of history for an area half the size of Germany. Then, to make matters worse, almost all historical artifacts from south India were removed from the temples and forts that they have been found and made their way to various collectors and museums in Britan during the Britsh Raj. If you want to study south Indian history, a trip to a museum in London will give you a lot more than walking around endlessly in South India. Then there's the lack of funding. It's absolutely embarrassing how little the various historians in India earn. Lately, I've been finding more books by historians in America (and even Japan) than those written by people in India. Then you have the frauds like Sanjeev Sanyal who destroy history by mixing up well established history and his own opinions on history and using the authenticity of the accepted history to add credibility to his baseless opinions. Studying Indian history is hard.

mgarfias 6y ago

missing taos nm

zelphirkalt 6y ago

This list seems quite incomplete. Check for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengdu#Early_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengdu#Early_history There are probably more cities like this.

bytematic 6y ago

These cities are beautiful open air museums

nanna 6y ago

In the UK there's a common derision of tourists from (sorry but) the USA who find themselves dumbfounded by the age of some rickety old pub from the eighteenth century they've tracked down. This Wikipedia page emphasises how little this old rock's got on the rest of the world. Apart from Australasia. Though seriously, I appreciate that Oceana's indigenous peoples are highly nomadic, but is it really the case that there's no continuous settlement there until European colonisation?

TheGallopedHigh 6y ago
Yes I think the idea here is that the distances over seas to reach islands took many many years until Polynesians delevoped the necessary skills and tech were able to navigate them and settle the lands. I don’t think any archeological evdince have been found otherwise.
namenotrequired 6y ago
> is it really the case that there's no continuous settlement there until European colonisation? Settlement yes, city no.

Zaheer 6y ago

This map is a nice visualization of the oldest cities: https://i.redd.it/qc23w3nl85u31.png https://i.redd.it/qc23w3nl85u31.png

seddin 6y ago

I'm incredibly impressed to find that Tangier is ther third oldest continously inhabited city in Africa, I go through it almost every year to visit Morocco, such a beautiful country.

Jagat 6y ago

Interesting that Marakkesh is listed as 1070CE. Marakkesh is where the 'gladiator' Maximus fights, and moves to Rome from, in the movie. That's during the reign of Commodus, which places it at around 190CE.

awiesenhofer 6y ago

Wow, this is a great example of a rather terrible wikipedia page. Grouping it by continent. No mention of the Middle East at all (Erbil anyone?). Oceania is just a list of every major city in AUS/NZ, even listing 1913s Canberra while omitting basically every other country in the region. Not trying to diminish the work that went into it so far, but it is a great example to always keep in mind how wikipedia works, how its content is built and to never trust it as a source in itself.

EdwardDiego 6y ago
And on the NZ side, it calls Bluff a city. It's a town (whose population peaked at 3000) near Invercargill, which is itself, only just a city. https://www.worldhistoryofbluff.org.nz https://www.worldhistoryofbluff.org.nz

RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago

We have a tendency to group all ancient cities together in our minds, but the difference between Luxor/Thebes(3200BC) and Rome(753BC) is about the same as between Rome and New York City(1624).

openlowcode 6y ago

Stupid comment maybe but I wished there was a global list. I was surprised though at the limited number of sites inhabited continuously since earlier than 2000BCE. I would believe that good natural sites (natural harbors with a river) would have been continuously inhabited since neolithic.

zaarn 6y ago

I live in one of the cities mentioned on this page (Augsburg), I think it's pointless to argue of how much is still around from the old ages and if people respect it. The age of a city builds a certain character on a city, the quirks and things that go on for some reason that has been forgotten since before America was discovered. Puts some perspective into "for an american, 200 years is a long time", doesn't it?

JoeAltmaier 6y ago

Jesus folks are getting owly. Yesterday I mentioned here, that in addition to inhabited cities there are very old nomadic populations, some very much older that the oldest continuously inhabited city. And got totally smashed by bad feedback, and eventually flagged (?!) for saying this. What gives? HN is normally such a tolerant place, full of curious people. Is this topic so emotionally toxic that no alternate dialog is tolerated? I'm honestly confused.

Octopodes 6y ago
>owly I learn the strangest vocabulary on this website.

new_mexican 6y ago

Aztec and Taos in New Mexico have been inhabited since 1000ad. They are considered cities, despite how small they are