11,000 year lease: the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities

2015-08-06T09:35:00-04:00

What makes a city habitable for centuries, even millennia? This list of the twelve longest-inhabited cities compiled by the Mother Nature Network, which includes several in ISIS-plagued Syria, one in China, and one in India, unsurprisingly points toward temperate climate, relatively stable water supply, and a certain intangible tenacity on the part of its human inhabitants (perhaps due to the existence of sacred religious sites). Here's the full list and number of years of estimated continuous occupation:

12. Varanasi, India (3,000 Years)

11. Luoyang, China (4,000 Years)

10. Jerusalem (4-5,000 Years)

9. Rayy, Iran (5-6,000 Years)

8. Sidon, Lebanon (6,000 Years)

7. Byblos, Lebanon (5,000 Years)

6. Plovdiv, Bulgaria (6,000 Years)

5. Argos, Greece (7,000 Years)

4. Athens, Greece (7,000 Years)

3. Aleppo, Syria (8,000 Years)

2. Jericho, West Bank (11,000 Years)

1. Damascus, Syria (11,000 Years)

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11,000 year lease: the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities