# What is the oldest city in Europe?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-city-in-europe/238178>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 4, 2004, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-city-in-europe/238178 "2004-04-04T11:15:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Fish\_Cheer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fish_cheer/32/17179_2.png) [@Fish\_Cheer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish_Cheer)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2004, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-city-in-europe/238178/1 "2004-04-04T11:15:00Z")

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Cádiz [claims](http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=Cadiz+oldest) this title, but is this a valid claim?

What consitutes a city anyway?

Aren’t there any older places in Greece itself?

What’s the oldest continously inhabited place in Europe that’s not considered a city?

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**Author:** ![Fish\_Cheer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fish_cheer/32/17179_2.png) [@Fish\_Cheer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish_Cheer)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2004, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-city-in-europe/238178/2 "2004-04-04T11:16:15Z")

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“constitutes”, of course.

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**Author:** ![gentle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/eb8c5e/32.png) [@gentle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gentle)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2004, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-city-in-europe/238178/3 "2004-04-04T16:59:56Z")

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[Oldest cities of the world](http://world.std.com/~nyani/oldest_cities.html)

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**Author:** ![Rayne\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@Rayne\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rayne_Man)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2004, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-city-in-europe/238178/4 "2004-04-04T18:34:21Z")

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I am surprised that the above link omits Colchester from the UK list. This was the first Roman town ( pre-dating London ,which was at that time just a river crossing point ) . Before the Romans settled in Colchester there was an Iron-Age settlement which was the reputed home of Old King Cole. This BBC link gives the full history :- [http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/colchester\_01.shtml](http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/colchester_01.shtml)