The Oldest Cities in the World: Where Civilization Began

London is old. Paris too. Rome of course. But none of these cities come close to the really old ones. Jericho had already built a wall when the Great Pyramid of Giza was still 5,000 years in the future. Damascus was already 2,000 years old when the first Greeks founded Athens. Here are ten cities that are older than almost everything we call history.

1. Jericho, Palestine (around 11,000 years)

Jericho in the Jordan Valley is the oldest known city in the world. Archaeologists date the first permanent settlement to around 9,000 BC. Back then, there was no large-scale agriculture, no metalworking, and no writing. And yet the residents built a stone city wall with a four-meter tower. That is the oldest known fortification in human history, 5,000 years older than any pyramid.

2. Catalhoyuk, Turkey (9,500 years)

Catalhoyuk was inhabited between 7,500 and 5,700 BC and had up to 10,000 residents. The unusual part: there were no streets. Houses stood directly against each other, and people entered them through openings in the roof. The dead were buried under the living-room floors, sometimes for decades right below the family. Catalhoyuk was eventually abandoned, and the reason is unknown.

3. Byblos, Lebanon (7,000 years)

Byblos is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities. It has existed since at least 5,000 BC and shaped the ancient world as a trading port. Its Greek name gave the word Bible its root, because papyrus was exported from here, the material on which the first Greek books were written. The Phoenician alphabet, the ancestor of our modern alphabet, was developed in Byblos.

4. Damascus, Syria (5,000 to 11,000 years)

Damascus is considered the oldest continuously inhabited capital city in the world. Reliable settlement traces go back at least to 3,000 BC, and some finds even suggest 9,000 BC. The city was never abandoned, never fell into ruins, and watched empires come and go. Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Saladin, and Suleiman all lived or ruled here. The same street layout in the old town has existed since Roman times.

5. Plovdiv, Bulgaria (8,000 years)

Plovdiv is the oldest continuously inhabited city in Europe. First settlements are dated to 6,000 BC. The city was the capital of the Thracians, then became Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, and today is a Bulgarian cultural capital. Underneath the central square of the old town lie the ruins of a Roman stadium with 30,000 seats.

6. Varanasi, India (4,500 years)

Varanasi on the Ganges is considered the oldest holy city in the world. It was already a religious center in 2,500 BC. The belief in Hinduism is that anyone who dies in Varanasi reaches Moksha directly, meaning release from the cycle of rebirth. That is why the city has run its own dying hospices for thousands of years. After his visit, Mark Twain wrote: Varanasi is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend.

7. Jerusalem (5,000 years)

Jerusalem was founded around 3,000 BC and is unique: it is the holy city of three world religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) on the same square kilometer. The city was conquered 44 times, fully destroyed twice, and besieged 23 times. Even so, it was never abandoned, and today with 950,000 residents it is bigger than ever.

8. Athens, Greece (5,000 years)

Athens is the cradle of European democracy and philosophically the most important place in antiquity. The Acropolis was settled from the 5th millennium BC onwards. Worth noting: after antiquity, Athens fell into almost complete insignificance. Around 1830, the city only had 4,000 residents, before being revived with Greek independence.

9. Luxor / Thebes, Egypt (5,000 years)

Luxor sits on the ruins of ancient Thebes and was the capital of Egypt for over 1,000 years. The city has existed since 3,200 BC and has the highest concentration of ancient ruins in the world. The Valley of the Kings, the temples of Karnak and Luxor, all in one place. Around one third of all ancient monuments in the world are located in Luxor.

10. Cholula, Mexico (2,500+ years)

Cholula is the oldest continuously inhabited city in North America. The Great Pyramid of Cholula has the largest base volume of any pyramid in the world, even more than the Great Pyramid of Giza. But today it is completely covered in earth and vegetation, and a Catholic church stands on its summit. Many visitors have no idea they are walking on top of a pyramid.

Why most old cities are in the Middle East

Seven of the ten oldest cities are in the so-called Fertile Crescent, a stretch from Egypt through present-day Syria and Iraq into Iran. Agriculture began there about 10,000 years ago. With agriculture came permanent settlements, with permanent settlements came specialization, and with specialization came the city. Europe followed only about 4,000 years later. So the younger older cities like Athens and Rome are the result of a city-idea invented in the east.

Frequently asked questions