Rise of Cities Part 4: The World's Oldest Cities

Cities where the past and present co-exist telling us the story of human evolution

Ruins at Luxor, Egypt. Image source: Wikimedia

Humanity’s journey from hunter-gatherers to high-tech city dwellers is truly astonishing. In the previous posts, we defined the criteria which make a settlement a city, looked at the rise of proto-cities, and learned about the earliest cities in history.

But which of these ancient cities that people built are still home to humans? Let us find out the solution to the query in this post. Remember Gordon Childe’s definition of a city? As mentioned in the last essay, we need to remember when a city was actually urbanized. Many settlements which were inhabited for ages didn’t become a city until much later. Varanasi (previously known as Benares) in India is a famous example.

“Benares is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together.” Mark Twain

Was the famous author right about what he thought of Varanasi?

There is evidence of continuous settlement in Varanasi since 2000 BC, ho…