The earliest cities in history were in the
ancient Near East, an area covering roughly that of the modern
Middle East: its history began in the 4th millennium BC and ended, depending on the interpretation of the term, either with the conquest by the
Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BC or with that by
Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC.
The largest cities of the
Bronze AgeNear East housed several tens of thousands of people.
Memphis in the
Early Bronze Age, with some 30,000 inhabitants, was the largest city of the time by far.
Ebla is estimated to have had a population of 40,000 inhabitants in the
Intermediate Bronze age.[1]Ur in the
Middle Bronze Age is estimated to have had some 65,000 inhabitants;
Babylon in the
Late Bronze Age similarly had a population of some 50,000–60,000.
Niniveh had some 20,000–30,000, reaching 100,000 only in the
Iron Age (around 700 BC).
In
Akkadian and
Hittite orthography, URU𒌷 became a determinative sign denoting a city, or combined with
KUR𒆳 "land" the kingdom or territory controlled by a city, e.g. 𒄡𒆳𒌷𒄩𒀜𒌅𒊭LUGAL KUR URUHa-at-ti "the king of the country of (the city of)
Hatti". The
KI𒆠 determinative is used following place names (toponyms) in both Sumerian and Akkadian.[2][3]
^Kohl, Philip L. (1991). "The use and abuse of world systems theory: The case of the "pristine" west Asian state". In Lamberg-Karlovsky, Clifford Charles (ed.). Archaeological Thought in America. Cambridge University Press.
ISBN978-0-521-40643-7.