ABSTRACT

Although there are on-going debates about exactly when, where and why the first cities arose, most scholars argue that the first, ancient cities began to emerge some five or six thousand years ago in various regions around the world. They began first as a shift from tribal communities and villages to larger, more complex, social, economic and political systems. The earliest cities were found in Mesopotamia (cities such as Ur, Erech, Lagash and Larsa that flourished in the southern portion of the Tigris-Euphrates river valley areas), Egypt (along the Nile such as Heliopolis, Memphis and Nekheb) and the Indus Valley (Harappa and Mohenjo-daro). Scholars estimate that at its height Ur might have had a population of 25,000. In China, the Huang Ho Valley appears to have been the region where the first cities of Shang and Chengchow in eastern Asia emerge. Grecian cities such as Thebes and Troy began to emerge around 1200 BCE, while the city of Rome began as a cluster of villages along the Tiber a few hundred years later. The Mayan cities of Tikal and Uaxactun are among the oldest in the New World, dating back to 200 ACE.