# What are the oldest cities? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 10, 2006, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-oldest-cities/363867 "2006-07-10T14:01:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2006, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-oldest-cities/363867/1 "2006-07-10T14:01:10Z")
This might be sort of a fuzzy question with a fuzzy answer, but I’m curious. What are the oldest cities that have been, and still are, continuously inhabited? I’m not talking about some old dead city that’s been excavated, or one that was bombed out, forgotten, then eventually reinhabited. What cities have had a constant, dynamic population for a millenium? Two millenia? Dare I say it, three? I would guess that London, Paris, and Prague have been around for more than a thousand years. Two thousand? Rome, Alexandria, Bagdhad. Three thousand? Athens? Jerusalem? What about, say, Kyoto, Beijing, Cairo, Mexico City, Istanbul, or New Delhi? What might be the absolute oldest? ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2006, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-oldest-cities/363867/2 "2006-07-10T14:09:53Z")
I do not know, but both Jericho and Damascus have laid claim to the title. There are older cities (or perhaps villages) but they are now abandoned. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2006, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-oldest-cities/363867/3 "2006-07-10T14:13:32Z")
_National Geographic_ had an article on Damascus, Syria a few years which made that claim. Or see: > **[List of oldest continuously inhabited cities](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_continually-inhabited_cities)** > > This is a list of present-day cities by the time period over which they have been continuously inhabited as a city. The age claims listed are generally disputed. Differences in opinion can result from different definitions of "city" as well as "continuous habitation" and historical evidence is often disputed. Caveats (and sources) to the validity of each claim are discussed in the "Notes" column. > A marble palace, stelae, houses and cemeteries dating from this period were discovered by archaeol... ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2006, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-oldest-cities/363867/4 "2006-07-10T14:30:46Z")
Re: Damascus; does the "Street called Straight’ mentioned in the NT still exist? Is paul’s house still there? ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2006, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-oldest-cities/363867/5 "2006-07-10T14:33:33Z")
Huh, interseting list. It seems that Jericho doesn’t really make the list because it was abandoned for so long. So Byblos is the oldest? That Wiki article didn’t have much about that city today, such as current population. ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_Bowe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@Doug\_Bowe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_Bowe)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2006, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-oldest-cities/363867/6 "2006-07-10T17:03:11Z")
[QUOTE=ralph124c] Re: Damascus; does the "Street called Straight’ mentioned in the NT still exist? Is paul’s house still there? [/QUOTE] Don’t know about Paul’s house, but here’s a picture of the street. [http://www.ushistoricalarchive.com/photochroms/4351.html](http://www.ushistoricalarchive.com/photochroms/4351.html) ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2006, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-oldest-cities/363867/7 "2006-07-10T18:36:58Z")
Oldest village (not provably continuously inhabited): Dolne Vestonice, Czech Rep., ~30,000 years. (Accurate and cros-check-able radiocarbon dating to 28,000 BC(E).) Jericho is known to have been inhabited _relatively_ continuously (with a few periods when it was a deserted ruin) since something like 8000 BC(E). I believe it’s inappropriate to conclude from the Wiki article and its references that Byblos is definitely older than Damascus, only that **proof** of age runs further back for the first than the second.