40 oldest cities in the world 1. Damascus, Syria - Damascus is often claimed to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, and evidence exists of a settlement in the wider Barada basin dating back to 9000 BC. 2. Athens, Greece - 5th–4th Millennium BC, but Earliest human presence 7th millennium BC. 3. Byblos (Jubayl), Lebanon - Settled from the Neolithic. carbon-dating tests have set the age of earliest settlement around 7000BC. 4. Ghor, Afghanistan - c. 5000 BC Remains of the oldest settlements discovered by the Lithuanian archaeologists in 2007 and 2008. 5. Medinat Al-Fayoum, Egypt - 4000BC 6. Anatolia, Turkey - 3650 BC Although most modern scholars place the Classical Antiochia ad Taurum at Gaziantep, some maintain that it was located at Aleppo. Furthermore, that the two cities occupy the same site is far from established fact. 7. Luxor, Egypt - c. 3200 BC First established as capital of Upper Egypt, Thebes later became the religious capital of the nation until its decline in the Roman period. 8. Plovdiv, Bulgaria - Thracian foundation. Earliest evidence of a settlement dates back to 3000 BC 9. Jericho, Palestine - 3000 BC or earlier, the earliest known walled city. Archaeological evidence indicates that the city was destroyed and abandoned several times (sometimes remaining uninhabited for hundreds of years at a time), with later rebuilding and expansion. 10. Rey, Iran - 3000 BC A settlement at the site goes back to the 3rd millennium BC. Rey (also Ray or Rayy) is mentioned in the Avesta (an important text of prayers in Zoroastrianism, as a sacred place, and it is also featured in the book of Tobit 11. Beirut, Lebanon - 3000BC 12. Jerusalem, Palestine - 2800BC 13. Arbil, Iraq - 2300BC 14. Luoyang, China - 2070 BC 15. Jaffa, Palestine - 2000BC 16. Aleppo, Syria - 2000BC 17. Amman, Jordan - 1878BC, Amman has been inhabited by several civilizations. The first civilization on record is during the Neolithic period, It was then destroyed by several earthquakes and natural disasters in the Middle Ages, and remained a small village and a pile of ruins for about 500 years, until the Circassian settlement in 1878BC. 18. Balkh, Afghanistan - 1500 BC 19. Hebron, Palestine - 1500BC Hebron is considered one of the oldest cities and has been continuously inhabited for nearly 3500 years. 20. Varanasi, India - 1200BC 21. Lisbon, Portugal - 1200 BC A settlement since the Neolithic. Allis Ubbo, arguably a Phoenician name, became Olissipo(-nis) in Greek and Latin (also Felicitas Julia after Roman conquest in 205 BC). 22. Pomparippu, Sri Lanka - 1200BC 23. Beijing,China - 1045 BC 24. Zeila/Avalite Bilad, Somalia - 900BC 25. Carthage, Tunisia - 814 BC Founded by the Phoenicians. 26. Sicily, Italy - 800BC 27. Fes (as Fes-al-Bali) Morocco - 789BC 28. Latium, Italy - 753 BC 29. Samarqand, Uzbekistan - 700 BC 30. Yeha Dmt Ethiopia - 700 BC One of the oldest site of continuous habitation in Sub-Saharan Africa 31. Istanbul, Turkey - 685BC 32. Rajagriha, Bihar, India - 600BC 33. Madurai, Tamilnadu - India 500 BC There are accounts of Megasthenes (c. 350 – 290 BC) a Greek ethnographer in the Hellenistic period, author of the work Indica, having visited Madurai (then, a bustling city and capital of Pandya Kingdom). Mahavamsa, the Sri Lankan chronicle mentions that King Vijaya married a princess from Madurai, and his period is mentioned to be around 543 BC. 34. Thambapanni, Sri Lanka - 500BC 35. Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka - 500BC 36. Nanjing, China - c. 495 BC 37. Igodomigodo, Nigeria - 400BC 38. Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa , Pakistan - 400–300 BC 39. Alexandria, Egypt - 332 BC 40. Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, India - 300 BC Some scholars believe that the city has been existing since the Sangam Period
Posted on: Thu, 06 Feb 2014 16:24:51 +0000
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