What Is the Oldest City Built by Humans?
The debate is far from settled.
When we think of the oldest city in the world, the answer should be straightforward. The winner is the city that can be traced back the furthest in time using radiocarbon dating.
But, the answer is not as simple as it appears. What do we mean when we talk about the “oldest city”?
Is it the world’s oldest continuously inhabited city? Or the first city built by humans that no longer exists?
What about cities that began as small settlements but grew into cities much later? At what point in time do we consider them as a “city”? You may also wonder, did any of these cities get depopulated, cease to exist as a “city” and again re-built?
“What is the world’s oldest city built by humans?” has several layers of hidden questions.
To keep things simple, let us discuss the world’s oldest inhabited cities which exist even today, and the first-ever built city. But, before we go into cities, let’s talk about what a city is and how to tell it apart from early human settlements.
