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Proposed general lines of review

The current list is a mess - completely arbitrary: Why, e.g. is Malang, capital of the Singhasari empire, documented as city in a 760 AD inscription, missing? What about Bethlehem, Mecca, Sana'a, Timbuktu, Hillah/Babylon? Padua, capital of the Veneti? Kalisz/PL, recorded by Ptolemy? Guatemala City, covering the Mayan site of Kaminaljuyu that dates back to 1500 BC? Instead, San Diego and Darwin are included among the World's oldest cities! Moreover, there is huge inconsistency between the information/dates in the list, and the linked articles on the individual cities in question (e.g. the Santa Fe/NM article stating settlement continuity since 900 AD). This is not in any ways up to WP standards.
It has also been frustrating to spend several days of work on diligently screening and documenting sources, just to find out that none of that is used, but instead stored safely away from further review on the "Archive 3" page.

To improve the situation, I suggest the following:

1. Skip the "continuously inhabited" part: There is no place for which this ever will be provable beyond reasonable doubt, at least as concerns prehistory. In fact, most of Middle East archeology demonstrates just the opposite: Clearly segmented archeological strata, indicating a hiatus before the next settlement phase began. For several cities on the list, e.g. Belgrade, there is both archeological and textual evidence of devastation and later resettlement. EDIT: I have realised this would be overdone. No site that was essentially unsettled for a longer period during historic times should be taken onto the list. However, shorter breaks, i.e. destruction by war/ natural disasters, and subsequent re-settlement, should be tolerated (e.g. Carthage, Singidunum/Belgrade). We might define a "maximum hiatus" here (50 years?). For prehistoric times, my point remains, and is adressed via #3 below. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:58:AB5C:FD00:90F9:73A9:F983:98AF (talk) 22:05, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

2. Orient on today's cities: To get onto the list, a place should first and foremost be a considered a "city" today. I suggest a minimum current population of 50,000. That threshold would still cover places like Trier, Timbuktu, Balkh, Reykjavik, but prevent, e.g., every single place recorded in the Tabula Peutingerania (Jülich, Bitburg, Boppard, Bingen etc.) or in Scipio's Geography to get onto the list as well.
Still, there are easily more than 100 Roman towns to add, so a higher cut-off (100,000?) might be worth considering. In that case, exceptions may be warranted for smaller cities of significant current (e.g. Reykjavik as capital) or historical relevance (Trier, Timbuktu, Balkh, Bethlehem). The reason for exceptional inclusion should be given in the list's notes.
For purely archaeological sites, e.g. Mahasthangarh, inclusion or non-inclusion of which is anyway extremely arbitrary (no Uruk, Babylon, Harappa on the list!), this should apply even more. However, see 3c below.

3. Multiple columns (sortable):To get rid of inconsistencies, I suggest for each city the following entries (noting in BP, with BC/AD dates in brackets, would facilitate sorting):

a) First documented (Year BP): A second column may provide notes on the source. e.g. for Kutaisi: Noted in the Argonautica by App. Rhodus as "Aia".
To which extent the Vedas qualify as source, and their dating, yet needs to be defined.

b) Suggested foundation:Additional notes as above, e.g. Rome: Foundation myth (Romulus and Remus), palace building in the late 8th century BC archeologically evidenced.

c) Earliest Archeological Evidence:This first takes us back to the old question of what makes a city. Clearly not just singular archeological finds or some excavated farming/fishing village. I suggest here any (any two?) of either

  • (i) traces of a settlement that is likely to have had more than 1,000 inhabitants;
  • (ii) evidence of large-scale industrial activity such as salt-making, mining, metal-processing;
  • (iii) evidence of long-distance trade, i.e. finds occuring more than just sporadically, which originate from at least two sources that are each more than xxx km away (xxx=300? 500?);
  • (iv) monuments evidencing a site's regional (not just local) relevance, such as an accumulation of "royal burials", astronomic installations (pyramids, observatories), menhirs, etc.
  • (v) larger (>5 ha?) defensive structures such as causedwayed enclosures, hill-top fortresses etc.

The second question to deal with is geographic continuity. Not all cases are as straight forward as the Potsdam City Palace replacing a Slavic fortress that sat on top of a Funnelbeaker causedwayed enclosure. More often, we have to deal with a Rome-like scenario, which saw several shifts of the city centre by 3-5 km (and had the Forum Romanum being uninhabited since some 1,500 years). I propose to consider here any archeological evidence that isn't located more than 10km away from today's city centre, plus an additional 2 km in case of burial monuments (typically located extra muros). These distances are of course somewhat arbitrary and open for discussion. My proposal is motivated by the attempt to connect (Old) Cairo to the Pyramids of Giza, which I deem sensible.

4. Set cutoff years: Cape Town, Darvin or San Diego don't belong onto a list of the World's oldest cities. I wouldn't consult this list if were interested about colonial settlement of the Americas or Oceania, WP has seperate lists for that purpose. I suggest to take anything from the list that isn't either
a) documented before 1550 AD (in order to incorporate reports by early European seafarers), in Europe/ Near East/ East Asia before 1000 AD,
b) having a suggested foundation before 700 AD,
c) provides archeological evidence of urban functions before 100 BC. For the Americas and SSA, different cutoffs may be considered.

Once the criteria have been agreed upon, the list needs to be completely rebuilt. A lot of information is already included in the archived talks. The individual city articles appear to often be better sourced than the list. Ideally, they should be consulted in the language of the city in question. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:58:AB13:CC00:4087:DF81:DD61:8A8 (talk) 05:03, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

I can understand your frustration.
1. I'd oppose skipping the "continuously inhabited bit), which would obviously entail a discussion about moving the article to a new title. I see you've actually suggested that we simply allow a hiatus time, which seems reasonable. That would still leave out Guatemala City though if the related articles are correct.
My immediate concern was places like York or Belgrade, for which the related articles suggest some kind of hiatus during the early medieval migration period (Belgrade also at the time of the Third Crusade). In fact, this should concern almost all European cities with the possible exceptions of Rome, Ravenna, Cologne and Byzantium (oh, skip that one for the 3rd century earth quake). Even for Trier, it gets difficult to put together an unbroken chronology between the 451 CE Hunnic destruction and the late 6th/early 7th century. There are very few contemporary texts available, and archeology may have problems to specify whether it was only parts of, or the whole city given up in this period. I don't think in-depth research on all the cities in question will be feasible. Unless we take a pragmatic approach, there will be another hundreds of comments coming in on the talk page claiming recent discovery of a couple of huts within former Roman city walls as proof of continuous inhabitation.
So, to make this operational, I propose any city appearing on the list must (a) lack textual or archeological evidence of having been given up for more than 50 years during historical times, and (b) during prehistory be archeologically documented as a city (see below) at least once during each millennium that follows the date noted under "Earliest Archeological Evidence". "Dark ages" may count as "prehistory" for that purpose (not ideal, but the best I can come up with at the moment). Rather than moving the article to a new title, I suggest a somewhat longer introduction describing the technical problems associated with proving continuous inhabitation, and the approach chosen to deal with these problems.''
As concerns Guatemala City: Apparently, Kaminaljuyu was given up in favour of a better defendable place, Chinautla, which is located some 2-3 km uphill on the same plateau, and still (though barely) within 10km distance of Guatemala City's center. Some ceremonial use of Kaminaljuyu continued [1]. If we apply the same criteria here as for Rome, which saw early medieval abandonment of the Forum Romanum, I think Kaminaljuyu - Guatemala City belongs onto the list. Late pre-Columbian population of the Kaminaljuyu-Chinautli area (including surrounding hamlets) is estimated at 19,000. Rome had some 15,000 inhabitants around the same time (Athens less than 10,000 by the middle of the 19th century).

2. Definition of city. Here we part company, as it isn't population size that determines a city at least from an archaeological perspective. We've discussed this before. [2]
I may have made my point in a misunderstandable way. The rationale was that we need a mechanism to keep the "long list" manageable. Nothing against Vincovci/HR, Bitburg (Vicus Beda), Chester, or Briancon (Brigantium). We may actually want to review them in, say, five years from now. But for the moment I see a lot of more pressing issues to be dealt with. To me, a city's current population size is a main criterion for ranking the "still to do-s". A signal to all potential contributors here that priority will be given to cities above a current population threshold should be appreciated, acceptable, and could help to prevent frustration about comments not being immediately considered.

In my opinion the definition should be functional. I would argue that to be a city you need at least public building and a political structure, although as we progress through history these attributes may not be necessary but not sufficient to define a city. There's an interesting discussion here[3] The archaeologist Gordon Childe did stress population size and the economic role. But the important thing is whether archaeologists call it a city. I see that Çatalhöyük, which some have called a village due to its lack of any public buildings, even for worship, is now called a city or proto-city at times. So if it is referred to in several clearly reliable sources as a city, we should include it.
I am afraid this might not work as long as archeologists haven't agreed among themselves on the functional criteria to use. Point in case is Rome: Recent research shows a late 13th century BCE settled area of around 35ha, which would indicate a population between 3500 and 7000. [4] To me, that's a city (actually a quite large one for the period in question). Archeology, however, still debates whether Rome at that time was a cluster of larger hilltop villages, proto-, or semi-urban. Equally hotly debated is its status after the mythical foundation date of 753 BCE (construction of a palace building is evidenced, but early laws still show "village-like" character). OTOH, the term "urban" is now regularly brought forward in research on "Mega-Sites", e.g. the Kapellenberg (City of Hofheim, Hesse, Michelsberg Culture, 3700 BCE) [5] [6] (see p. 405 ff for the need to review Childe's criteria, and various individual cases including Colchester on p.410). As much as I appreciate a broader perspective with less of Mediterraanean/ Near Eastern bias, I still have some question marks here and there (less on functions, they clearly were urban, more on the settlement sizes).

I believe we will need our own list of functional criteria, as specific as possible, also to ensure that any proposals for list inclusion can be easily confirmed or rejected without having to go through dozens of academic publications and interpretations.
3. Columns and dating. Columns good, but we can't use BP except where that's the only dating, as it refers to an archaeological dating method and isn't the same as before 1950. Personally I prefer BCE dating for such articles but am not going to argue that.
It is only relevant for list sorting, to prevent BCE and CE dates getting mixed up. We may use rank numbers instead, but that would mean another three columns, and a lot of maintenance work whenever a city is added to or removed from the list.
First documented and suggested foundation seem good.
Earliest archaeological evidence. Major industrial activity has taken place in areas where there was clearly nothing that could be called a city, so that wouldn't be enough.
Well, we'd obviously need a permanent settlement at the site. But in general, industrial activity marks a key distinction between a village and a city. The "industrial" part can quite easily be demonstrated archeologically - stone knapping residue, spindles, briquetage, kilns/ furnaces, differentiation between "houses" and "workshops", etc. The "major" (compared to off-season self-supplying) part is more of a question and might require a sharper definition. Still, I think verifying this criterium may be much easier than the "political structure" point that is being brought forward by you. [Not that "political structure" is irrelevant - to the opposite! But how do you prove it for prehistory?]
I wouldn't agree with population size, either, but the other criteria look good. Hm, no, I wouldn't expect menhirs in a city, they are usually part of a "sacred landscape". But again, public buildings such as temples, etc. I'll add that the Giza plateau was never part of a city and am confused by your statement about that.
"Sacred landscapes", whether made up by Pyramids, Menhirs or other installations indicate a place that is relevant to a population from a wider region. They served as area for worship, convention, political decision making, probably jurisdiction, and typically also longer-range commercial exchange. IOW, they assumed urban functions. "Royal burials", e.g. the pyramids of Giza, provide us with the additional information that a center of territorial authority (commonly called a "capital") was located nearby.
I am having problems with the "public buildings" part. First, it is quite difficult to distinguish a temple from a "sacred landscape". Athen's Acropolis is approximately as distant from the antique Agora, as is the 50 ha Funnelbeaker circular enclosure of Halle-Dühlauer Heide that holds Central Europe's second largest menhir from the city's town square under which dense iron age housing and saltmaking evidence has been found. Döhlauer Heide is one of the Central/Eastern European "Mega-Sites" that archeologists are in the process of re-defining. In any case, places like Rome or Jerusalem make the "temple on the hilltop - market and workshops in the valley below" pattern looking to be quite widespread. Some cultures built their temples with wood, others with stone, and the latter are obviously easier to identify in the archeological record. But should we base understanding of a "city" primarily on the preferred construction material?
Another problem is defining a "public building". There are many buildings that differ from standard residential layout, be it in the Cucuteni-Tripolye "Mega-Sites", or in Neolithic Great Britain and Scandinavia. In the latter contexts, they are typically interpreted as some sort of "men's assembly and drinking halls" - I think "public house" is the proper English term. Is a pub already making a city? I wouldn't say so. A church/ temple? Neither (and also not a pub next to a church). Five pubs around a market square, OTOH .. Sport/ entertainment venues, btw, might be an urban indicator - Mayan ballcourts, Roman amphimtheatres etc. (not sure on the Asian pologround evidence, though)
Reviewing my previous proposal: I ideally would like to see evidence of (a) population concentration clearly above standard village size (>1,000 people?), (b) economic centrality (long-distance trade, artisanship/ industry) and (c) socio-political centrality (worship, defence, "royal burials", "public buildings"?). We might not get too many places with archeological evidence for (a), (b) and (c) combined; one or two of those three may have to do. Personally, I think already just one out of a list of clearly defined criteria is better than the current situation, where any settlement trace is equalled to having been a city. But I am fine with a more restricted approach, as long as it can easily be verified, and is applied consistently. Maybe we do a test run (in a separate talk section) to figure out which (combination of) criteria would lead us to which archaeological date for commonly accepted "ancient cities" - say Jericho, Aleppo, Balkh, Rome, Luxor, Xi'an.
Cutoff year - to be discussed after everything else is settled. Doug Weller talk 09:40, 24 December 2015 (UTC)
Agreed.
I even find it dubious in principle to speak of a "city" in a clearly prehistorical (not even protohistorical) period. In a culture that has no writing and that has not even been documented by another culture that has, there's just not a lot to go on, only scattered, fragmentary, accidental and heavily ambiguous archaeological evidence. Arguably, the label of "city" requires a literate culture by definition. In the case of Damascus, the problem is quite evident. Personally, I'd exclude prehistory and keep things to the oldest verified historical documentation – who except overzealous nationalists with an inferiority complex cares whether Plovdiv is 2400, 3200, 5000, 6000 or 8000 years old, and has an interest to arbitrarily inflate numbers in a way that conveys no useful information, because tons of cities stand on ground that has been settled for millennia? When you accept the flimsiest archaeological traces as evidence for "continuous inhabitation as a city", you allow the list to degrade into a pathetic dick-measuring contest. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:41, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Tripoli

I'm not a regular wikipedia editor so I don't know how that works, but Tripoli was settled in the 7th century BC, shouldn't it be in the list? 41.254.6.23 (talk) 20:06, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Panama City

Both the Wikipedia articles for "list of cities in the Americas by year of foundation" and "Panama City" state that Panama City was founded in 1519. The citation provided that states it was founded instead in the fifteenth century (1400s) doesn't have a hyperlink for verification. Should this entry be changed to 1519? Nicole Sharp (talk) 00:42, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

No, to 1673. It was destroyed by fire and rebuilt 2 years later 5 miles away. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doug Weller (talk • contribs) 05:12, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Date for Jeruslem

Jerusalem's article itself is useless on this. No reliable sources suggest a 7000 year old continuously inhabited city, that was just someone's pov edit. This mentions some of the debate but is 10 years old. Doug Weller talk 15:33, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

POV disruption by User:Sevt V

User Sevt V keeps removing all entries of Greek cities, such as Argos [7], Athens, Thebes [8] and Chania [9], even these are impeccably sourced. I just added the sources for Thebes and Chania, but he removes them while pretending not to notice that they are sourced. Athenean (talk) 03:46, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

The user made legitimate removal as none of the sources cited above provide information for the age or the continuous habitation of these cities. Page 14 of the first source of Athens [10] does not claim anything about the age of continuous habitation of Athens. Much of the sources are falsificated. All these citations are challenged and will be tagged again. Before removing the tags, quote the sources here on the talk page, please.87.227.208.188 (talk) 18:51, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

You are quite mistaken. You link to the wrong page of the book, and on Greek Google Books no less. Page xiv in Roman numerals is not the same as page 14 in what we call Arabic numerals. The ref is correct, here is the correct page, which says "Chronology: c. 4000 BC Neolithic settlements on Acropolis". Carlstak (talk) 19:19, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
I think it's quite obvious the IP user is a Bulgarian nationalist who simply cannot and will not accept certain things, no matter how well sourced they are. From past experience there is no point in engaging such people. 19:39, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
I won't argue about that, but the age given for Athens is wrong. Again, this isn't a list of oldest inhabited places, but cities, and Athens wasn't a city in the 4th millennium. Doug Weller talk 20:08, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
Carlstak, see List of Neolithic settlements and make difference between continuous habitation and that. There are double standarts in the table. That the age of continuous habitation of almost all cities is unsourced within the table is quite obvious, undisputable and does not need any further explanations. Even further ages not in the citation given have been inserted today.87.227.208.188 (talk) 20:50, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
It's a moot point, IP editor, because as Doug Weller said (and I think you're trying to say), "Athens wasn't a city in the 4th millennium." But when you accuse someone (it wasn't me) of falsifying refs, please get your own citations right. Carlstak (talk) 21:31, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

(unindent) Argos: "...appears to have been continuously occupied till today, mostly as an urban site, thus offers 7000 years of settled continuity"
Thebes: "Thebes did not become a major city until the Mycenean period (1600-1250 BC)."
Chania: "Cydonia is one of the five great cities of Minoan Crete, although exact location of the ancient city was not even resolved until the latter half of the 20th century. The most powerful centre of western Crete, Cydonia produced Bronze Age pottery and Linear B writings circa 1700 to 1500 BC, and was one of the first cities of Europe to mint coinage.

About Athens we can debate and I will look for more sources, but about the other three, I really don't see how it could be any clearer. I think we are clearly dealing with a severe case of WP:IDHT and WP:IDONTLIKEIT from the IP editor. Athenean (talk) 02:57, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Only the statement for Argos claims continuous habitation, but if you don't point a page of the quotes they are hardly valid. Though the continuous habitation is possibly true for the rest of the cities, it is not claimed by the sources, i.e. the last two quotes. For them it is not said that continiuty may have not been broken. Nobody is even required to like your edits, this is not even a policy.87.227.208.188 (talk) 04:19, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
Regarding Argos, I'm starting to think you are joking. I have provided both a page number and a link. There is no evidence that Thebes and Chania have not been continuously inhabited, unless you can prove otherwise. By the way, for Plovdiv, one of the sources used is a newspaper (telegraph.co.uk), two are something in Bulgarian without any links or bibliographic information, and the fourth one is not viewable online. If I hold Plovdiv to the same standards as you hold the Greek cities, I should remove Plovdiv. Athenean (talk) 04:46, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
You alleged users what they are (either disruptive or nationalist), now you discuss with them by some your nationalist criteria. I only tagged sources that are not used correctly. I marked the sources for 4000 BC next to Plovdiv as dubious and old, in fact there is no evidence for both Sofia and Plovdiv for unbroken continious habitation before 350 BC. 87.227.208.188 (talk) 05:13, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
No you didn't, in fact you added a source that allegedly said Sofia has been continuously inhabited as a city since the 8th millennium BC [11]. Athenean (talk) 05:27, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
I followed incorrect intension, judging by Neolithic settlemnts, as you have added to Athens so many milleniums of age only due to a Neolithic settlement. Athens is much younger than Mycanean Thebes. You should have used that kind of sources indicating continious habitation. It is dubious why google recognizes your quote on Thebes, but not the quote on Argos, but however. 87.227.208.188 (talk) 05:44, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
Linear B in 1700–1500 BC? I call bullshit. Apart from the Kafkania pebble, which is very dubious and was found on the mainland, not on Crete (it might be Linear A if authentic), no Linear B inscription is dated that early. Hogan, who is a physicist and only a hobby archaeologist, evidently doesn't know what he's talking about here. That source doesn't look reliable at all; it's just the personal website of Julian Cope, a musician without any relevant academic credentials to act as a competent editor. No actual archaeologists were involved. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:12, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
I suspect that Hogan, the author of the cited article on Chania/Cydonia, simply confused Linear B with Linear A. Still, my point about the unreliability of the source stands. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:29, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

"Continuously inhabited"

What does that term exactly mean? If it's used to determine that a place has been incessantly occupied by a population (and that it has nothing to do with a place being officially founded or named), then wouldn't this technically mean cities like Sydney and Melbourne have been inhabited since 30,000 years ago? So instead of having their European colonization date then we should use their Aboriginal dates? Can somebody explain this? Meganesia (talk) 13:13, 05 October 2016 (UTC)

As a city. And no one can prove continual habitation for 30,000 years. Even proving it for a few thousand can be difficult. Doug Weller talk 19:35, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

What should we do about these pueblos?

Taos Pueblo, Taos Nation, NM. established 2nd century CE|Circa 2nd Century CE. |Oldest continuously-inhabited site in Western Hemishpere. Tanoan town. Acoma Pueblo of Acoma Nation (NM) and Oraibi in Hopi |Nation (AZ) are possibly the 2nd and 3rd oldest places still inhabited in the Western Hemisphere, both being established |before 6th century CE. (Sources: Arizona State Univ. Dept. of Archaeology, Universidad de Nuevo Mexico Dept. Arcaeologico, |US Census Bureau, "Indians of North America," Driver et al. University of Chicago,1998 edition. [1][2] First source needs fixing. Doug Weller talk 12:40, 15 January 2016 (UTC)


References

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference UXL was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Acoma Pueblo, Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes, January 1, 2008

Tucson could be added to this list. What's the consensus? KC 17:12, 7 November 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Boydstra (talk • contribs)

The key word is 'city'. Tucson's been a city since about the middle of the 19th century. Doug Weller talk 19:38, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

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Heraklion

First, the entry is unsourced. Second, it is incorrectly placed at the top of the table, as if it were the oldest city, and third, I find it very odd that according to the table, Heraklion has been continuously inhabited since "824 AD by Muslims". Which is ridiculous both because a) Heraklion has not been "continuously inhabited by Muslims", and b) we don't mention any other ethnic/religious group in any other city entry. Khirurg (talk) 07:26, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Oh, and by the way, there already is an entry for Herkalion, somewhere near the bottom of the table. In fact, given it's rather late date of founding, I don't even know why we need an entry. It's not particularly old, it's actually one of the more recent cities in Greece and southern Europe. Khirurg (talk) 07:28, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

@Khirurg: Thanks. I hadn't noticed that it was a duplicate entry, I was only editing it (the duplicate) to make it match its main article. I couldn't find a source. I meant it to say "founded by Muslims" but something went wrong there. If you can find a source that would be great, or just drop it. Sorry about its place in the table, I need to sort out how that works although I think I've gotten it right before. Doug Weller talk 11:09, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

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What's the point of this list?

IMO a list of the oldest cities of the world is pointless if half the cities on it were founded in the 17th or the 18th century. A 200-year-old city is not old by any standards. It should include the oldest 1-2 cities of a continent or the oldest cities by country, but right now it seems like it includes everyone's favourite city. – Alensha talk 21:32, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

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Should we include cities that dwindled to settlements?

Eg Susa. Doug Weller talk 18:46, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Division by continent

Why was this divided by continent? It introduces a completely arbitrary division between Mediterranean settlements in Asia, Europe and North Africa, all of which belong to the same cultural sphere which also happened to produced the first cities. This makes the list very difficult to use. There used to be a culturally literate division into regions, but if you don't want to divide it up in this way, at least don't divide it at all and make it sortable by time and by region. --dab (𒁳) 12:31, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

(𒁳) I think most of the editors here really know very little about the subject, misunderstand the list, and use low-quality sources. I don't think they could cope with anything else, but of course you're right, this isn't the best way to divide it up. Doug Weller talk 13:01, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Cities that don't exist today don't belong on this list

Which part of "continuously inhabited" is confusing? Richard75 (talk) 21:27, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

Pueblos should be removed

With all respect, these aren't cities. I think they should be removed. See Puelo for a description of them, and the name itself is Spanish for village or town. Doug Weller talk 12:45, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Neolithic "cities" also aren't cities by any modern standard. They are Stone Age cities. This is neither here nor there, the topic of this page is about places that are cities today listed by the date of their first establishment as (any type of) settlement. --dab (𒁳) 09:07, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, I realize that this is what you are saying, Acoma Pueblo is not a city, I agree. --dab (𒁳) 09:08, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Cities that were destroyed and abandoned don't belong on this list

Again, which part of "continuously inhabited" is confusing? Richard75 (talk) 09:13, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

The problem with this page is that no ancient city was strictly inhabited continuously (they were all sacked/destroyed and rebuilt several times over). In some cases it is also impossible to establish "continuity" with any certainty, so it becomes a matter of opinion or probability. The entire premise of this page was probably chosen poorly, the scope should be "cities by date of foundation" or similar. --dab (𒁳) 09:10, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Al-Ain / Al-Buraimi / Tawam in Eastern Arabia

As stated, the area of Al-Ain, Al-Buraimi or Tawam is considered to have been inhabited for almost 8,000 years. It is the same area, but divided by the border between the UAE and Oman, with the city of Al-Ain being on the UAE side, and the town of Al-Buraimi being on the Omani side. Leo1pard (talk) 05:41, 18 November 2018 (UTC); edited 05:43, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

@Leo1pard: as my edit summary says, "Inhabited for almost 8000 years[71] since the Hafit period of the early Bronze Age." is contradictory. But the main issue is the criteria for this list is that the age at which it began to be continuously inhabited as a city. That can be hard to prove, and there are ancient cities that almost disappeared for a while before becoming cities again. The Guardian EL points out that " Jericho has a tenuous grip on the “continuously inhabited” tag, having been largely abandoned for centuries on end" We need good archaeological sources.
Looking at Al-Ain, I see what appears to be original research. For instance, "Bronze Age burial sites show continuity in occupation. For instance, the Wadi Suq communal tomb at Qattara is thought to have been constructed from stones recovered from previous Umm Al Nar burials." with a citation that doesn't give a page number, something vital as editors can't be expected to read a whole book. In any case, any archaeologist, even an amateur like me, can point to examples of stone reuse after centuries of abandonment (we call it "robbing" normally although whoever wrote Spolia doesn't use the word at all, which is odd. Al Buraimi is more cautious but a big ambiguous, " demonstrated to have been inhabited as far back as the Hafit period of the early Bronze Age." Doug Weller talk 09:26, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
@Doug Weller: To think of it, the area of Al-Ain / Al-Buraimi / Tawam was a land of villages and oases before the modernisation drive of the 20th century, during the time of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan of the UAE, who was a contemporary of the current Omani Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said, but inhabited for much longer, as shown from sources that I have, in the same way that a number of Australian cities existed as cities since the 18th and 19th centuries, but were built on lands that were inhabited for much longer. Want the other sources? Leo1pard (talk) 09:34, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
@Leo1pard: Not really thanks. Those Australian cities can't be dated back before they became cities. Villages aren't cities although many become cities (and some of those degenerate to villages or less and become cities again, like Jericho). Doug Weller talk 09:37, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
@Doug Weller: In that case, it is probably better to leave out "continuously inhabited as a city since", due to the issue of cities being villages or towns at different times, or vice-versa, or having being abandoned from time to time. Leo1pard (talk) 09:40, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
@Leo1pard: we can't remove one of the criteria, it's embedded in the title. That's what this list is about. Doug Weller talk 11:58, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Przeworsk

Copied from my talk page, see below User:Gyerchak. Doug Weller talk 16:49, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Hi, my edit from oldest continously inhabited areas in europe was recently deleted; the settlement in town of Przeworsk existed before first mention in medival era, theres way more information about town at polish languague page of wikipedia; heres http://www.przeworsk.um.gov.pl/historia also option to view a bit about town in english languague. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gyerchak (talk • contribs) 19:35, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

@Gyerchak: that was because the article is about continuously inhabited cities. Not settlements, not even towns, and Przeworsk is a town and became a town in 1394. Sorry about that, but it just doesn't qualify. Doug Weller talk 19:49, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
@Doug Weller: allright thanks for explaination, however i noticed that most of "cities" under the page have counted inhabitation sice actually beeing villages and Argos for example was changing it s status and it ended up as a town similar in size to Przeworsk.

Also after 1394 Year Przeworsk get literally City Laws (pol. Prawa Miejskie) in past role of Przeworsk was higher compared to now; it was second biggest city in area after Przemyśl https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/pl/timeline/446682eb320bc250544a71005e700bf2.png population at 1490 was 2000; exactly same as of Kraków 1250, so it totally count as city, nevermind with that. in my oppinion it s just quite a bit not clear segregated on whole article with the cities : they are segregated by date of being inhabited as a village settlement, in my oppinion they should be segregated by something like when they get city status to look more clear and avoid miss-leadings. thanks for discuss. for example: Przeworsk was a long continously inhabitted settlement since 4500 BCE and became offically city at 1394 CE now is in curret standards a town (althought still with city laws becouse according to Polish laws there can be only City Status) *just for an example even if it don't count second example :Argos started as a village about 7000 years ago, but gained city role way much more later (around 1st Milenium Bce?) third example : Koszalin inhabitation on page is also counted as the time it become village

everything is sorted by starting the "continous settlement" which made me that mislead about Przeworsk, if it really count by it, in my oppinion in that case Przeworsk would deserve have such tittle to be honest. creating a tab with approx date of becoming city which would be sorted by it would be good idea.

@Gyerchak: could you please copy your comment above to the talk page of the article so others can see it. It's certainly true that there are other problems with the article. Doug Weller talk 21:27, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
@Doug Weller: Could You do it instead of me and tag me i m completly new on Wiki Community and i don't know yet how to do all things well there :/ (i will read some articles about all of it soon for sure)

Singapore

Newbie here from Singapore. Pretty much every source online and offline I've encountered says that Singapore was founded in 1299. The 1170 claim is cross-referenced to a dead link. I'm not sure what the protocol would be to do a correction. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ng.yisheng (talk • contribs) 15:33, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

@Ng.yisheng:, Hi. I've moved this to the bottom. Even if the source wasn't a dead link it would fail WP:RS. But the main thing is the phrase "continuously inhabited". Singapore says "In 1613, Portuguese raiders burned down the settlement, and the island faded into obscurity for the next two centuries." It also says "Stamford Raffles founded colonial Singapore in 1819." So it looks as though this needs to be changed to 1819 and thus I'm not even sure it belongs. There's a discontinuity between the title of the article and the first sentence of the lead. Doug Weller talk 15:52, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Matera

How ignorant are the maintainers if this page? I have added Matera, 2019 European capital of Culture, because I was appalled at its missing from the list. From UNESCO to all major historians it is known as the third oldest city in the world. Only at Wikipedia they did not get the memo. Well they did from me but decided to erase it Mynollo (talk) 08:23, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your insults, they are so convincing. First, this is not a list of the oldest cities in the world. It's a list of the oldest continuously inhabited cities - from the time they became cities until now. There's no place with definite continuous habitation since the 10th millennium BCE for a start. There were no cities at that time either. That people lived in the area then and continued to live there isn't proof of a city. One expert on Matera wrote "The date of Matera's founding is debated; however, the revered work of the city’s early chroniclers provides numerous, generally accepted accounts of Goth, Longobard, Byzantine, and Saracen sieges of the city beginning in the eighth century and accelerating through the ninth century CE. See, for example, Protospata 1519/1979: 27." Doug Weller talk 15:37, 22 January 2019 (UTC)


Dear Doug Weller You use the phrase "Goth, Longobard, Byzantine, and Saracen sieges of the city" to prove with a historical fact that somebody actually "saw" the city and consequentially the city existed. But what about the fact that the city was very well know at the time of Romand and Ellenics? Matera was already known by the ancient Greeks as Mataios olos then Mataia ole and then Mateola. A roman general in the 2nd century BC had Matera's walls built and also built new towers. It was already considered city and its citizens were called Mateolani. Not only "In Hellenic Age it welcomed refugees from the cities of Metaponto and Heraclea" Not only: "Quinto Cecilio Metello Numidico who lived in the II century BC, built city walls and towers for Matera" These are also demonstrations that the city existed. We don't need to go so further and disturb Goth, Longobard and Byzantine. https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storia_di_Matera Anyway I'm very sad to see how 9.000 years of history are just deleted because of a bureaucratic quibble. Most part of the "cities" in this list, weren't cities at the indicated foundation date. They were settlements. A second thing: "foundation" usually means that a population coming from another territory, decides to found a city in a precise place. The story is different for settlements that existed naturally in an area. Usually these type of cities have a late official foundation date. Whoever studied history knows that. Additionally Matera has been chosen together with Plovdiv as 2019 European capital of culture because they're both considered to be an example of oldest cities in Europe. There aren't other reasons. I absolutely understand the first comment by the user Mynollo, because it's very upsetting that a 9.000 years old city just gets deleted because the precise foundation is "debate". Matera is known all over the world to be one of the oldest cities. It's like if you refuse to consider a baby to be a baby just because you don't see the birth certificate. There's isn't an official date for the foundation of Matera and there will never be. So what we do? We delete Matera from this list because of this? I understand the difficulty of positioning Matera in a precise time line in the list of this page but many cities have a very large time-range when it's about foundation. Date likes "1st century BC" are very generic If the foundation dates are so generic why this doesn't apply to Matera? Why can't be taken as a date the 2nd Century BC when the Roman general Quinto Cecilio Metello Numidico gave walls to Matera? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.183.159.162 (talk) 10:20, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

WP:VERIFY is core policy which we shouldn't ignore. This article has a lot of serious problems with that. The Italian page for Materia uses a travel guide, something we should never use for this sort of thing. I've found a source for 251 and added it to the Matera article and to this one. That's 3rd century by the way. There's no way it's a 9000 year old city, let alone continuously inhabited as a city since then. We call Jericho one of the oldest cities but don't claim it was continuously inhabted because it wasn't. You do realise that cities and governments want to show pride and sometimes overstate things I hope? You mention Plovdiv - the sources used for that are 1963 - 54 years later they seem out of date and wrong.[12] Doug Weller talk 12:54, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Sana'a, Yemen

The article for Sana'a, Yemen, mentions that city to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in its introduction. Just wanted to get a consensus for this before adding it to the list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Uq (talk • contribs) 23:44, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

@Uq: it's really refreshing to see someone wanting to discuss first. I've got a problem. The lead says oldest continuously inhabited city, but the body of the article says "is one of the oldest populated places in the world" whatever that means, and seems to base that on something about Shem. That's not very convincing. I've removed those unsourced claims. This[13] has some interesting material. Doug Weller talk 10:03, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
@Doug Weller: Thanks for the link. And yes, I agree that the relation to Shem forms part of the local folklore but doesn't substantiate the claim. However, the source you provided states that Sana'a has been inhabited since at least the 3rd century CE, which would make it older than Tabriz and Yazd (listed under Western Asia).

How are Some Cities even on here.?

How is Carthage part of one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities? No-one lives in the ruins of Carthage. It doesn't even exist as a city today? Someone should definitely remove it! Also Canberra was founded in 1913, only about a hundred years ago, that is not old. If that is old then there would be way more cities on the list. This is the oldest continuously inhabited cities list not the over hundred-years old city list.CountHacker (talk) 23:09, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

User:CountHacker I've removed it, although you could have. Read the above, this list is a mess. Doug Weller talk 17:38, 9 March 2016 (UTC)


  • Bulleted list item

indeed carthage did not stoped to exist you clearly did not visit Tunis the capital of tunisia, Tunis is founded on the site of old carthage all the ruins lay in Tunis city and if you think that carthage did disappear after the roman destruction you are wrong it did not it was the capital of the roman africa province for almost a millenium and the site did never loose its population even when Tunis was founded, and taking your opinion that no one inhabit the ruins so we have to omit many cities like Athenes because old Athenes is on the Acropolis and no one lives there because it is just ruins so new Athenes is not the old Athenes --154.121.32.64 (talk) 11:04, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Oceania

Does Honolulu count? It has been continuously inhabited for at least a thousand year and was recognized as capital in 1845. Papeete has been around since 1818 when it was established as a mission station by William Pascoe Crook. Nukuʻalofa seems to have existed since pre-contact and was made capital in 1875. KAVEBEAR (talk) 04:03, 29 May 2020 (UTC)


India

Erroneous dating of Varanasi and omission of Dwarka (or Bet Dwarka) from the list continuously inhabited cities

I am shocked by the implicit bias shown by Doug Weller and RegentsPark in the dating of ancient Indian cities. I have provided citations that are more reliable than the citations used on this page but they are trying to cherry pick data and statements to reject these updates. What is even sadder is that both of them seem to using their Wikipedia credentials to send me warnings and silence my opinions.

They have been repeatedly discriminating against Ancient Indian history by rejecting the conclusions from reliable peer-reviewed articles. In one instance they both asked me to prove 'continuous inhabitation' of these cities. There is always an inherent vagueness when discussing the age of ancient cities that are thousands of years old, but these two have misused the concept 'scientific rigor' to reject valid claims.

I would like to reiterate (and seek support from other Wikipedia admins/editors):

Age of Varanasi is at least 1500-2000 BC -

https://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/bhu-team-unearths-4000-yr-old-crafts-village-in-varanasi-120022300355_1

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/4000-year-old-crafts-village-unearthed/article30900983.ece

History and inhabitation of Bet Dwarka (The port city 1km off shore from Dwarka) goes back to atleast 1000-1500 years -

Proof of continuous inhabitaion - http://drs.nio.org/drs/bitstream/handle/2264/284/Curr_Sci_82_1351.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Proof of ancient articles on excavation -

http://drs.nio.org/drs/bitstream/handle/2264/3085/J_Mar?sequence=2

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1095-9270.2005.00080.x — Preceding unsigned comment added by Spratap123 (talk • contribs) 22:28, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

There are bad sources in this article, there are unsourced claims. Neither Regents Park nor I are responsible for them. All I do is watch the article for changes and deal with those appropriately. As you admit, there's nothing peer reviewed in your sources for Varansi. Your first link for Bet Dwarka says "a few potsherds, believed to be of protohistoric period, are apparently considerably more recent (2000 years BP), which may suggest the continuation of protohistoric habitation up to historical period at the same site." "May" is the operative word there. It doesn't mention a city. The article on excavation is about settlements, no claim for continual habitation. I'm not sure what the Wiley abstract offers, we know there was a port there in historical time. You are free to go to WP:RSN to argue that these are reliable sources for your claims, but I doubt you'll have much luck. Personal attacks and lack of good faith don't help your case. Doug Weller talk 12:10, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
Also, you say you were sent warnings, but neither of us have posted on your talk page. Doug Weller talk 12:15, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Bad sources? - Doug Weller, You can not be serious about this.

Allow me to show you what bad sources are -

Citation 1- Biography (Biographies are not peer-reviewed) of a man who lived in 200CE as a citation for a city which has been claimed to be from 700BCE.

Citation 4 - A web page of a tour operating company.

Citation 6 - A city mayors website

Citation 8 - Moroccan embassy website

Citation 9 - How well does it fit your 'continuous inhabitation' criteria?

Five out of first ten citations are not robust - That's 50% of them!

It saddens me that I need to poke holes in other citations for you to be able to see your own favoritism. This is the very definition of an 'implicit bias'. It is not a personal attack but a reflection on your preset notion that data coming from India is 'sub-par' by default. In light of all the citations used on this page, your and Reagents Park's actions are an abuse (or selective use at best) of scientific rigorousness. I hope WP:RSN intervenes in time to stop you two.

Yes, I have received warning from Wikipedia that an administrative ruling is in effect, and administrators may impose sanctions on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies. Good job Wikipedia! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Spratap123 (talk • contribs) 13:53, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

@Spratap123: you wrote that User:RegentsPark and I sent you warnings (plural), you got a standard alert, not a warning, from User:Bishonen. Thanks for your work finding those bad sources, I look forward to your finding better ones. As I said, I have never tried to fix everything on this page, I only get involved with new edits except the very unusual occasions when I notice something else and have the time to fix it. Which I don't. Noticeboards are not people, and you haven't defended your sources there. Doug Weller talk 14:42, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
@Spratap123: As Doug Weller says, the sources don't provide support for continuous habitation. Also, just as we are doing with your edits, you can always remove sources that are not reliable. --RegentsPark (comment) 15:51, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Delete all unsourced entries?

Doug Weller's post in WP:RSN brought this page to my attention. Isn't it overdue just to remove all unsourced entries? And then proceed with entries based on sources that do not meet WP:RS (including old sources which do not employ the methods of modern critical scholarship), or entries which are based on bold interpretations of reliable sources. –Austronesier (talk) 09:27, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it needs a major cleanup. I haven't had time so I've been dealing with it edit by edit. Doug Weller talk 17:26, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
Sure, one-by-one will be less drastic, and maybe some of the unsourced entries can be rescued with valid sources from the main article. I'll help out, and can also bring this to attention to geography-based WikiProjects. –Austronesier (talk) 17:35, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
I was shocked to see poor sourcing even for Ancient Egypt. That would be worth a Wikiproject request for help. And it's sad to see it rated low importance in Wikiproject Cities. 17:25, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Genoa

Currently Genoa has the oldest listing on this page. Yet the citation says nothing about "continuous inhabitation", merely ancient inhabitation. To my knowledge there is no particular evidence of continuous inhabitation before a few centuries BC. It wouldn't be surprising if it was continuously inhabited, but the evidence isn't there, especially not in that citation. 69.113.166.178 (talk) 06:55, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Isfahan

According to this News Article :

www.iranian.com/2020/07/17/unearthed-workshops-push-back-history-of-isfahan-by-millennia/


The Oldest humans Remains In the city of Isfahan is nearly 3 Centuries BC , That would place the City Age as more than 2000 Years old !!!

Please consider Including the city in this list .

Thanks very much !!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.39.255.136 (talk) 21:41, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

"Continuous inhabitation" means people lived there at every point between now and then. Obviously if this find is thousands of years older than previous evidence, then it does not extend the evidence of "continuous habitation". Merely ancient habitation. 69.113.166.178 (talk) 06:57, 30 November 2020 (UTC)


Wikipedia's article on Isfahan cites its importance in the Achaemenid empire and gives a fairly clean accounting of continuous occupation since at least ~500 BC-ish. Would have as strong a case of being included as most of the other cities here. 69.42.183.10 (talk) 18:22, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
That would be synthesis, and an extremely sketchy application of synthesis, at that. I don't mind at all if you start removing cities which are insufficiently documented. Maybe we'll find that this page doesn't have a leg to stand on and should be deleted. But insufficient documentation of one city should not lead you to add more insufficiently documented cities. 69.113.166.178 (talk) 06:34, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Two Plovdiv entries

There are two entries for Plovdiv at the section on Europe. Which is the correct one? Hope that an editor will fix this. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 06:14, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Bulgarian cities of Sofia and Plovdiv

The Bulgarian cities of Sofia and Plovdiv appear as two separate entries. This is really sloppy, and one could argue it even damages the reputation of Wikipedia. Also, the older of the two dates (for both cities) seems incorrect, given the timeline of how the agricultural revolution spread throughout the European continent. Gregorybard (talk) 04:51, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Faiyum (as Shedet) - clearly not 7000 years old

I'm not even sure that there was a continuous habitation of Shedet until today, eg Britannica says it was a town in the medieval period[14] and several sources suggest that the modern Fairyum was built near Shedet, so thus again not continuously inhabited as a city. Doug Weller talk 15:44, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

What is the oldest city on record, not the oldest continuously inhabited, not the oldest village or township, but the oldest CITY?

What is the oldest city of which we have knowledge? I.e. based on the latest findings of modern archaeology and historical analysis, what is the most ancient bona fide CITY, not the most ancient, continuously inhabited city nor the most ancient settlement or village? Bardolotrous (talk) 19:41, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Cut-off year

Seems to me that there needs to be some limitation on what qualifies for inclusion. Why would Toronto, a city founded in 1793 AD (almost 200 years after Quebec City, the oldest continuously inhabited city in Canada), be on a list with dozens of entries from BCE? Or why would Canberra, founded in 1913 AD, appear? Seems irrelevant that "[a]rtifacts suggests [sic] early human activity occurred at some point in Canberra dating at around 21,000 years ago," that tells us nothing about old continuously inhabited cities.

I looked through the Talk archives and this question has come up a couple times, but never definitively resolved (as far as I can tell). A couple of users have proposed guidelines:

I agree with the sentiment, but I disagree with the arbritary limit of AD 700. After AD 500 or so, cities should only be listed if they are the oldest in a particular country or region, such as "oldest in Scandinavia", "oldest in the Philippines", etc. Such entries are perfectly relevant and should stay. --dab (𒁳) 18:15, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

and

I suggest to take anything from the list that isn't either
a) documented before 1550 AD (in order to incorporate reports by early European seafarers), in Europe/ Near East/ East Asia before 1000 AD,
b) having a suggested foundation before 700 AD,
c) provides archeological evidence of urban functions before 100 BC. For the Americas and SSA, different cutoffs may be considered.
[...]
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:58:AB13:CC00:4087:DF81:DD61:8A8 (talk) 05:03, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with the first comment: pick a semi-arbitrary cutoff, and only deviate for cities that "clearly" merit inclusion based on notability, principally, the oldest continuously inhabited city in a country/region (and the Notes should clearly state as much). This does still raise the question of how to limit the number of cities before the arbitrary cutoff (e.g., the list already includes six cities from Illyria ranging from the 4th c. BCE to 1st c. BCA - do we really want to include all six, and if so, would we also then want to include every continuously inhabited city established in ancient Illyria?).

Interested to hear what others think. I won't be so bold as to start hatcheting at entries... yet (?) Theturbolemming (talk) 15:57, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

@Theturbolemming: I think this is an excellent approach. I'm not sure how many cities from a country/region. Doug Weller talk 08:33, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
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