I’m not looking for something like the pyramids but a building used primarily for habitation or commerce. As a for instance Paul Revier’s house in Boston is the oldest building in Boston but would not count as it hasn’t been anything but an historical site for many years. The various thousand’s of years old ruins are out as they haven’t been inhabited since who knows when. So where is this place?
Probably the Pantheon in Rome. Used since 126AD. It has been a Roman Catholic Church most of that time and is still in use.
Cite:
The Pantheon is in use as a Catholic church, and as such, visitors are asked to keep an appropriate level of deference. Masses are celebrated there on Sundays and holy days of obligation. Weddings are also held there from time to time.
The pantheon in Rome was built on the 2nd century AD, was in use essentially ever since as a temple (first to the Greco-Roman gods, then to Christianity) and only recently has it become a museum/tourist attraction.
(Edited to add: good grief, possibly strange minds think alike!! XD Ninja’d by literally a second!)
So there is a weird candidate, the small city of Matera, Italia has dwellings that have been inhabited as homes for almost 9000 years with some minimal exceptions. Around 1950 the ancient cave dwellings and carved homes were declared unfit for habitation and people were forced out. But by 1990 people were dwelling in homes again incorporating these ancient cave dwellings. Over a 9000 year span, I think we can excuse a less than 40 year gap.
It sounds like some of the residents in the 50s refused to relocate anyway. So it is possible there are a few carved homes that have actually had continuous inhabitation for 9000 years. Wow!
Up to you, @SandyHook, if this qualifies.
Keep in mind, this is significantly older than the Pyramids or Stonehenge which have not actually had continual use.
wow, I was just about to post the same thing!
I have been to the Sassi (I have family about an hour from Matera). Amazing place, as is Matera. I think they would be a good contender for the prize.
It will be far from the oldest, but there is an 11th century tower in the town next to mine that is now apartments. I went to a party in the ‘penthouse’ a few years ago and saw that the walls were 3 feet thick. I love the idea of an apartment in a thousand year old building. There is actually a bust of Cesar embedded in the wall of the tower taken from nearby Roman ruins when the tower was originally built. They must have felt the bust, at 1000 years, was pretty old at the time!
(the date in the article is incorrect, the historical plaque on the outside of the building says XIe siècle)
Didn’t we do exactly this question a year or so ago?
But it’s been an entire year. The answer may have changed. 
There might have been a period of time the Pantheon was not used example
Last year the buildings at Madera were thought to be about 9,000 years old. This year they are thought to be about 9,001 years old.
I believe the Curia Julia in the Forum is actually older, dating from 44 BC. But “in use” may be the sticking point, in that it doesn’t really have a function anymore, unlike the Pantheon’s continued use as a church.
Also would cave dwellings count? I mean, they’re caves, not actual structures built by man.
Sassi di Matera, wow, now that’s old. But maybe not exactly what I wanted though I guess I didn’t make that entirely clear. I was looking for an entirely manufactured structure.
But I’m impressed by What-_Exit’s answer. Next time we are in Italy we’ll try to check it out.
It really looks like your answer is the Partheon, but it might be worth digging a little more into Sassi di Matera, there might be a few manufactured home that count.
They would be far more humble though.
Tangent:
Paul Revere’s house is not the oldest house in Boston-the James Blake house is. Built in 1661, 19 years before what became Paul Revere’s house. I lived in the Blake house as a caretaker in the 1970. Caretakers still live in it (it is a house museum in the Dorchester area of Boston). Graduate school friends lived in the Revere house as caretakers at the same time, so it was lived in as a home at that time.
When I went there I asked a tour guide how old the dwellings were. He said “9,008 years old.” I said “Wow how can you be so precise?” He said “They told me they were 9,000 years old when I started working here 8 years ago.”
Disclaimer: old joke adapted to fit the post. I have never been there.
There are apartments on the upper floors that according to Wikipedia seem to have been in use since the 400’s if not earlier.
In the US (now) I expect it’s Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, NM:
There seems to be no way to get a good picture of it and not much to see from the outside anyway.
Some of the Native American ancestral Pueblo buildings are OLDER than that:
Yeah, I was going to mention the Taos Pueblo.
And the Sassi di Matera reminded me of other structures in the Southwest that, unlike the Taos Pueblo, were formerly used by the area’s inhabitants but are now unused (but not necessarily abandoned.) Whenever I go to one of them, I think the inhabitants had it easy because half of the time I am tent camping and I think that the dwellings that are sheltered from the rain in an overhang, and from the wind due to the walls, are much cushier than tent camping, even though they would otherwise have none of the modern creature comforts we expect in a house.
By gosh you’re right! Present-day permanent residents at Acoma Pueblo are about 30. It appears around 20 at Taos Pueblo.
Not the oldest but plenty old: the Hagia Sophia.