Humanity has been living on this planet for thousands of years ago. As time progressed, so did the living beings on Earth. From small communities, they’ve done their best to innovate and create bigger and better cities.
From being hunter-gatherers to farmers and to the variety of jobs and occupations we have today, we can truly say that humanity has done its best to thrive.
What’s interesting is to learn how all of this played out. From the very beginning, the oldest beginnings of cities started near fertile farmland and rivers that provided water, both for irrigation for farm fields and as a means of transporting the crops they produced to other markets.
A common example of an ancient city was located in Mesopotamia, which lay in between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Due to advancements in navigation and transportation, eventually, other cities were able to rise away from bodies of water.
Howstuffworks compiles a list of the oldest inhabitable cities in the world and some details on how they were founded. While it’s difficult to determine the precise time period when a small village became a city, our best bet is to look at these ten cities that have been recognized as the oldest in the world:
1. Damascus, Syria
2. Jericho, West Bank, Palestine
3. Faiyum, Egypt
4. Beirut, Lebanon
5. Byblos, Lebanon
6. Aleppo, Syria
7. Athens, Greece
8. Plovdiv, Bulgaria
9. Gaziantep, Turkey
10. Susa/Shush, Iran
Learn more about these cities here.
Image credit: David McEachan
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