Talk:List of oldest continuously inhabited cities

Croatia

To the best of my knowledge (sorry, this is not my speciality), Vukovar has not been continuously inhabited since Vučedol culture. See also Vukovar#Early_history. It should probably be removed from this page.

According to Liburnians#Settlements, the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Croatia would be Zadar and some smaller towns (Krk, Rab, Nin). I've also seen some discuussions about Pula and Stari_Grad,_Croatia, so these may be worth looking at. Stari_Grad,_Croatia has been founded 384 BC and promptly attacked by Liburnians from Zadar - quite a good reason to believe that Zadar is older...

A great naval battle was recorded a year after the establishment of Pharos colony by a Greek inscription in Pharos (384 – 383 BC) and by the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (80 – 29 BC), initiated by conflicts between the Greek colonists and the indigenous Hvar islanders, the Liburnians, who asked their compatriots for support. 10,000 Liburnians sailed out from their capital Idassa (Zadar), led by the Iadasinoi (people of Zadar), and laid siege to Pharos.

I found some claims on the web that some recent archeological work has shown that Vinkovci has been settled since 6300 BC: Vinkovci su zapravo najstariji europski grad - zaista najstarije urbano naselje u kojem se u kontinuitetu živi više od 8300 godina, tvrdi prof. dr. sc. Aleksandar Durman, zagrebački arheolog koji radi na Filozofskom fakultetu u Zagrebu. U središtu toga najstarijeg europskog grada (Vinkovaca), na lokaciji koju arheolozi zovu „tell Tržnica", Durman je 1977., na mjestu današnjeg hotela, pronašao "nalaze starčevačke kulture, te ih datirao u 6300. g. pr. Kr."

References

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.218.164.126 (talk) 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Naples

The informations about naples are completely wrong, need update: Parthenope (VIII century), Neapolis (VI century). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.1.150.153 (talk) 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Where would Siberia be in?

I don't think it fits in any of the categories. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2404:4408:17b6:1200:7d73:951b:9b20:cba2 (talk) 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Proposal for Europe's new Top 5

The Europe table is seriously outdated, so I propose the following change in the Top 5 based on the most recent results from carbon dating. This proposal meets the standard used for most (if not all) entries of this article: (1) that a place was a human habitat in the scientifically established past, and (2) that the same place is inhabited by humans today. (Please refrain from demanding to see references on continuous settlements at these places, as that would seek to impose a standard too high/impossible to meet since no one can know for sure if a place had been occupied or vacated during all days of every year of every decade of every century of every millennium, so such demands would not be following the standard used for most entries, and WP:You don't need to cite that the sky is blue.) Note how vividly the old entries for Pogradec (Albania) and Argos (Greece) depict/expose the article's low standard (so much so that, if the carbon dating were a requirement for inclusion, those two would probably not make it into the list). AuoueioA (talk) 00:41, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

The high standard of continuously inhabited part was imposed by the nature of the list itself, as this is a list of oldest continuously inhabited cities. Also, your list is based on a book about neolithic Bosnia and an article about an albanian location. Much larger databases are needed (eg. 14SEA covers all the southeast Europe). C messier (talk) 21:54, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Also, you made a mistake, Date BP means Before Present, not BC. C messier (talk) 22:02, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Name	Historical region/period	Present location	Continuously inhabited since	Notes
Kakanj	Neolithic Europe, Kakanj culture	Bosnia and Herzegovina	6795 BC	Carbon dating of a human settlement (archeological charcoal fragments) at Obre in Kakanj, within the Bosnian Neolithic Kakanj culture.
Tuzla	Neolithic Europe, Starčevo culture	Bosnia and Herzegovina	6640 BC	Carbon dating of a human settlement (archeological charcoal fragments) at Gornja Tuzla settlement in Tuzla, within the Neolithic Starčevo culture.
Pogradec	Neolithic Europe, Illyria	Albania	6000 BC	"The Lin area has been inhabited since Prehistoric times new Archaeological findings confirm it is the oldest settlement in Europe. Archaeological findings from the hilltop above the present-day village include foundation walls and mosaics of an early Christian Byzantine church, dating from the 6th century.".
Sarajevo	Neolithic Europe, Butmir culture	Bosnia and Herzegovina	5938 BC	Carbon dating of a human settlement (archeological animal bone fragments) at Ilidža settlement in Sarajevo, within the Bosnian Neolithic Butmir culture.
Argos	Neolithic Europe, Mycenaean Greece	Greece	5000 BC, continuous habitation as a city uncertain	The city has been cycling between village and city status for 7,000 years. Recorded history begins in mid 2nd millennium BC.

References

Recent additions

@Johann S. Weiss: I did go through the cited sources before i removed the items you added. I know your edits were done in good faith; however, just because the sources describe different historical periods, it doesn't necessarily mean that the cities have been continuously inhabited without any interruption. We can cite similar sources for just about any city that exists since antiquity; that doesn't mean they were continuously inhabited. In order for a city to be included in the article, a reliable source should say something along the lines of "city X has been continuously inhabited since Y"; otherwise, it is essentially a violation of WP:SYNTHESIS. There was a recent discussion about this. For example, from the source for Fasa, we read:

• Apart from these myths, archeological as well as historical linguistic evidence indicates that the antiquity of Fasā goes back at least to the Achaemenid period, when Fasā was an important settlement site with fortifications (...) or, in Harold Bailey's interpretation (...), the southern stronghold of Persia in that period. According to George Cameron (...), the origins of Fasā probably antedate the Achaemenid period[.] Moreover, Aurel Stein, during his archeological explorations in Fārs (November 1933 to May 1934), found prehistoric mounds (mostly belonging to the Eneolithic period) at numerous places in the area of Fasā including, for instance, the Tall-e Sīāh (...). The nearby mound of Tall-e Żaḥḥāk (see below) is surrounded by abundant archeological remains and contains archeological strata indicating human settlement in that area in different periods (...).

First of all, the antiquity of Fasa cannot be used to support the claim of continuous habitation since these early periods. Furthermore, you arbitrarily chose the Achaemenid period, which lasted from approximately 550 to 330 BC, and then, again arbitrarily, added c. 500 BC to mark the beginning of the continuous habitation. Besides that, even if we were to follow your rationale, we also have quotes like the following, which bring into question the claim of continuous habitation:

• By the first decade of the 6th/12th century, Ebn al-Balḵī wrote that "although Pasā is as large as Isfahaņ, it is in complete disarray, and the largest part thereof in ruiņ Šabānkāra [tribesmen] had destroyed it; the atābeg Čāvlī had it rebuilt" (...). Probably on account of its gradual decline, Fasā is seldom mentioned in later chronicles.

It is similar with the other three items you reinstated. If the authors don't explicitly describe these towns as continuously inhabited since a certain period, then we are essentially doing improper editorial synthesis. If these cities have been continuously inhabited since the purported periods, which they very well could be, then it shouldn't be hard finding reliable sources supporting the claims in a plain manner. Demetrios1993 (talk) 01:50, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Jericho

Why is Jericho not on here? 10,000BC — Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.145.253.33 (talk) 04:41, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Article makes no sense

This article is terribly formatted.

It shouldn't be divided by continent, but instead have absolute values.

Other articles, like world's tallest mountains, include this information and have the region as a separate field in the chart, so you can sort it by region, age, etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.145.253.33 (talk) 04:23, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

There older continuously inhabited cities

Jericho, Damascus and Urfa are continuously inhabited since 11000-10000 years before present. 178.246.234.156 (talk) 11:35, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

The first two are already listed, and the latter may be included with a reliable reference to support the claim. Mindmatrix 13:55, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Klang (city)

@Austronesier: Can you please verify if the article by Ramli & Nik Abdul Rahman (2010) that was cited by the IP (diff), supports the claim of continuous habitation since 200 BC? You can access their article here; it is written in Malay. The second reference they added was to the book A Survey of South-East Asian Prehistory (1976) by Robert L. Hoover, which unfortunately also lacks a precise page number; however, the only mentions of Klang appear to be on page 30, in the following passage, which doesn't support the claim of continuous habitation:

• In 1905, three large bronze bells were found near Klang. They had typical Dongsonian decorative motifs and were dated to about 200 B.C. The bells were about two feet high and were struck like gongs, as they had no clappers. Part of a bronze kettle-drum was discovered in Pahang in 1926 after a flood at Batu Pasir Garam. A second drum fragment was found in 1944 at Klang. Naturalistic decorative patterns indicate that these drums are Heger's Type I, perhaps being cast in the second century A.D.

Thanks in advance for your time. Demetrios1993 (talk) 16:53, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Kumasi

@Demetrios1993. I cited 3 pages. The first page, xxxvii lists that Kumasi emerged as the capital Ashanti in 1680. The second and third cited pages are pages 200 to 201 where it states Kumasi was "founded in 1680" and the pages narrate the history of the city until the 21st century where it serves as the capital of the Ashanti Region. Here is the source once more specifically page xxxvii and here is page 200—201 (https://books.google.com/books?id=bi_2EAAAQBAJ&pg=PA200&dq=the+first+half+of+the+19th+century+was+the+golden+age+of+kumasi&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiwyOHshNSFAxUuUkEAHeYcBmEQuwV6BAgJEAg#v=onepage&q=the%20first%20half%20of%20the%2019th%20century%20was%20the%20golden%20age%20of%20kumasi&f=false) Please check it again.

References

Kwesi Yema (talk) 19:14, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

@Kwesi Yema: I saw the three pages you cited, but per the explanation in my edit summary (diff), I didn't see any explicit mention of Kumasi being continuously inhabited since 1680, or something along those lines. Pages 200–201 present a quick summary of the settlement's history after its foundation in 1680, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it was inhabited without any interruption. For example, in that small summary we also read the following, which brings into question the claim of continuous inhabitation:

pp. 200–201: But the British occupied Kumasi in 1874. The palace of the Asantehene was destroyed and much of the city was burned down. Recovery was not complete before the English returned in 1896. Once again much of the town was destroyed, and this time the Asantehene Prempe I was carried away into exile.

Assuming continuous inhabitation since 1680 in this case would be improper editorial synthesis, which is a form of original research. Having said that, at least personally, I am not that strict about items that are about post–1500 foundations; in such cases, I wouldn't have a problem with non-academic reliable sources which either make an explicit statement about continuous inhabitation, or provide a detailed historical timeline for the respective settlement without any gaps. Unfortunately, the summary that you cited doesn't make any explicit statements, has some gaps in the historical timeline it presents, and quotes such as the one I shared above could even imply a brief interruption in the inhabitation of Kumasi. I also found another reliable source, which corroborates my aforementioned assumption on the interruption of Kumasi's inhabitation.

From Yaa Asantewaa and the Asante-British War of 1900–1 (2003) by Albert Adu Boahen; edited by Emmanuel K. Akyeampong:

pp. 176–177: But there were some negative impacts too, all of which, fortunately, were overcome in the long run. The first was the widespread destruction of life and property during the War. Thousands of Asante were killed, whole villages and towns were razed to the ground, most of the 77 wards of Kumasi were burnt down and Kumasi was left as a deserted village. Fortunately, it did not take even a decade for the process of reconstruction and rehabilitation to get going and by the time of the repatriation of Prempeh, Kumasi was already showing all the signs of a modern city, and well on the way to becoming the "Garden City of West Africa".

I could consider a compromise of reinstating the item with a {{better source needed}} tag, which would only be meant as a temporary solution; but, in this case it seems that there was indeed a brief interruption in the inhabitation of the settlement. Demetrios1993 (talk) 18:11, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Alright, reinstate with a "better source neesed tag." Kwesi Yema (talk) 06:12, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Actually, I didn't support the reinstatement of the "Kumasi" item with a tag, and furthermore, the {{better source needed}} tag is meant to indicate inline citations that link to insufficiently reliable sources; but, in the case we are discussing I questioned the validity of the claim, not the reliability of the respective source. The claim for the continuous inhabitation of Kumasi since 1680 failed verification and is the result of improper editorial synthesis; tags such as {{failed verification}} and {{dubious}} would be more appropriate. The claim is even negated by a different reliable source that I shared above, which speaks of Kumasi being "burnt down" and – for a brief period – left as a "deserted village". Demetrios1993 (talk) 01:10, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Well noted. Kwesi Yema (talk) 16:50, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Why is Lin village removed from this list when it has been inhabited for 8500 years.

Lin a village in southeastern Albania is believed to been built at least 8500 years ago by carbon dating by neutral foreign archaeologists.Don't do politics in history,just that Greece might have the oldest,it was removed by a Greek for political reasons.Re add Lin village from Albania as top 1. 79.106.33.71 (talk) 20:20, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Demetrios1993 (talk) 13:23, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

City of Susa

Susa in Iran is one of the oldest known settlements in the region, whose construction dates back to 4200 years BC.Despite this, the first found traces of a residential village in it date back to 7000 BC. 37.255.155.37 (talk) 08:06, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

The page is about present-day cities that have been continuously inhabited. If you can share a reliable source supporting this for Susa, we will include it in the list. Demetrios1993 (talk) 14:56, 29 August 2024 (UTC)