Oldest City in the World

This artist depiction shows Eridu, a long-vanished ancient city that was inhabited by humans around 7,000 years ago. It now only exists as a historical site in modern-day Iraq. Public Domain

The story of the world's cities began thousands of years ago. As humans progressed from being hunter-gatherers to farmers who domesticated plants and animals for food, they began to build villages in which to live. As advances in agriculture made it possible to support larger numbers of people, those villages gradually evolved into permanent, densely populated and highly organized communities that became centers of commerce and culture and were ruled by governments.

Many of the oldest cities were located 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. One prime location was Mesopotamia, a region in what is now Iraq that lies between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, while other cities in the ancient world developed along rivers in Egypt, India and China. As trade developed, the coastline of the Mediterranean Sea and the oceans became desirable as well.

Some of the world's first cities — such as Eridu, the ancient Sumerian city on a site that was first inhabited by humans around 7,000 years ago — vanished long ago, and now only exist as historical sites for archaeologists to excavate and preserve.

But other ancient cities have been continuously inhabited, sometimes through periods of growth and decline.

Since it's difficult to determine precisely when a smaller settlement grew to the point where it could be called a city, ranking the world's oldest cities by age can be tricky. But here are 10 cities that often have been recognized as being among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world.

Damascus, Syria

Founded in 3000 B.C.E., Damascus is considered by many to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It became an important cultural center and major trading city because of its position at the crossroads of Asia and Africa. It was part of the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Islamic civilizations, each of which influenced it. The city's layout, a grid which dates back to Greek and Roman times, and the Great Mosque at its heart, served as a model for other Arab and Islamic cities, according to UNESCO. Today, modern Damascus has a population of approximately 2.6 million, according to the CIA Factbook.

Jericho, West Bank, Palestine

Jericho is another that is arguably the oldest city in the world at around 11,000 years old. It's located in the Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank, and archaeological evidence has documented 23 layers of ancient sites and civilizations there dating back to the 10th millennium B.C.E. During the excavations, traces of visits of Mesolithic hunters, carbon-dated to about 9000 B.C.E., were discovered, as well as ancient ruins of a massive stone wall, confirming Jericho also is the earliest known walled city in the world. Today Jericho's population is just under 20,000 according to World Population Review.

Faiyum, Egypt

Faiyum, Egypt, is located on the Nile River southwest of Memphis, and was established around 4000 B.C.E. The ancient Egyptians called it Shedet but the Greeks referred to it as Crocodilopolis. The Greeks there worshipped a crocodile known as Petsuchos, which they treated as a representative of the crocodile god Sobek. Ancient ruins in the city date back to at least the 12th Egyptian dynasty, between 1938 and 1756 B.C.E., and archaeologists have found ruins from Ptolemaic, Roman and medieval periods as well.

Today, modern Faiyum is a center of commerce that is connected by rail, canal and highways to other parts of Egypt, and is home to a population of around 433,000 people in 2023.

Beirut, Lebanon

Archaeologists have found evidence of human habitation in Beirut dating back to 3000 B.C.E. The city also is mentioned in Egyptian records, though it didn't become a prominent city until it was the site of a Roman colony in 14 B.C.E. Roman Beirut barely survived a succession of earthquakes, and when it was occupied by Muslim conquerors in 635 C.E., it was mostly in ruins.

In the Middle Ages, Beirut grew into a thriving port city where Venetian spice merchants came to trade, and later it became a manufacturing center in the 1800s. The city grew rapidly under French rule in the early to mid-1900s, but in the second half of the century ethnic and racial tensions and warfare wreaked devastation from which the city has yet to recover. Today, Beirut has a population of 2.4 million, according to the CIA Factbook.

Byblos, Lebanon

This ancient city of Byblos, Lebanon, is located on a sandstone cliff along the Mediterranean coast, 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Beirut. It was built on a site first settled by fishermen in 6000 B.C.E., according to UNESCO. Byblos didn't develop into a major city until about 2,000 years later, when it became an important port for the trade of cedar and other wood to Egypt. By 1100 B.C.E., Byblos had become an important city in the Phoenician empire, and in the centuries that followed, the city became part of the Roman, Byzantine, Crusader and Ottoman realms. Today, Byblos is one of the world's oldest cities and has a population of around 100,000, including many refugees from Syria, according to Citypopulation.de.

Aleppo, Syria

The exact age of this northern Syrian city is unknown, but a massive temple discovered there dates back to the early Bronze Age, between 3300 and 2200 B.C.E. according to the World Monuments Fund. Early inhabitants are believed to have built their dwellings on a hill in the center of the modern city, which gave them a position that was more readily defended from invaders, while also close to fertile agricultural land and the Quwayq River. By the 1800s B.C.E., Aleppo was the capital of the Amorite kingdom of Yamkhad, and in the centuries that followed, it became part of the Hittite, Egyptian, Mitannian and Persian empires. Modern Aleppo has a population of 2.2 million, according to the CIA Factbook.

Athens, Greece

The ancient city of Athens, Greece, has been continuously inhabited by humans since the Stone Age, but the city first arose between 1200 and 1300 B.C.E. as part of the Mycenean civilization, according to Michael Llewellyn Smith's "Athens: A Cultural and Literary History." Athens grew into one of the great intellectual and political centers of Ancient Greece, symbolized by the Parthenon, a temple to the goddess Athena. Athens survived being burned to the ground by Persian invaders in 480 B.C.E. as well as being conquered by both Sparta during the Second Peloponnesian War the 400s B.C.E. and Philip II of Macedon in 338 B.C.E.

Athens became a major city in the Roman Empire and in the Ottoman Empire as well, before Greece won its independence in 1821. Today, ancient monuments like the Parthenon, which was built in the city's monumental Acropolis complex in the 400s B.C.E., make Athens a tourist hub. Athens is the oldest capital city in Europe with a population of 3.15 million, according to CIA Factbook.

Plovdiv, Bulgaria

The second-biggest city in Bulgaria is also one of the oldest cities in Europe. The site was first inhabited by humans between 5000 and 6000 B.C.E., but it wasn't until 2,000 years later that it developed as a settlement in the Thracian civilization. The ancient city has a tumultuous history of being invaded and conquered over the centuries by Persians, Greeks, Celts, Romans, Goths, Huns, Vikings, Crusaders and Ottoman Turks, according to the University of Pennsylvania's Russian and Eastern European studies department. Today, Plovdiv has a population of nearly 350,000 and is a major cultural center for Europe, according to World Population Review.

Gaziantep, Turkey

This ancient city in south-central Turkey is located on a site that has been continuously inhabited by humans since between 3000 and 4000 B.C.E, and grew due to its proximity to ancient trade routes. It's the site of a fortress built by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I in the 500s C.E., and later was captured by the Turks in 1183. Over the centuries, Gaziantep changed hands numerous times, and was ruled by Mongol and Timurid invaders before becoming part of the Ottoman Empire in the early 1500s C.E. Today it has a population of nearly 2.1 million, according to World Population Review.

Susa/Shush, Iran

Susa, located at the base of the Zagros Mountains in southwest Iran, has been continuously inhabited by people for centuries and is one of the oldest cities in the Middle East. It evolved into a major city between 4,000 and 5000 B.C.E. An archaeological site on the edge of the modern city of Shush contains multiple layers of urban settlements that include Elamite, Parthian and Persian civilizations, and has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Alexander the Great captured the city in 331 B.C.E., and a few years later held mass weddings in which he and his Macedonian companions married daughters of Persian nobility in a symbolic attempt to unite the two peoples. Today, Shush has a population of more than 52,000, according to World Population Review.