cities are one of mankind's most important inventions made possible by the discovery of agriculture by living in cities humans were able to trade their nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles to live in a single place for an extended period of time by collecting our populations and to densely organised settlements humans were able to further specialize in two particular trades from this many inventions and technologies we might take for granted today like plumbing all the way to grocery stores came about as solutions to problems unique to city life living together we were safe from any predators at a surplus of food and began to develop complex societies and cultures meaningful art and music could finally take hold and there was an initiative to create new and useful products for people to use writing was invented first as a means of recording trade transactions and soon enough we were able to store information outside of our own memories so that people ten a hundred or even a thousand years in the future could access our accumulated knowledge in the beginning few people elected to trade their simple agricultural lives for the hustle and bustle of maybe thousands of people all in the same place even as our population started to climb global urbanization stayed relatively low that is until the Industrial Revolution which drove the masses away from the farms and into the factories soon enough a small room in a big city held the same value as acres upon acres of fertile land in 2007 for the first time in human history over 50% half of the world population lived in a city and today were nearly up to 55 percent that means right now there are over 4.2 billion people living in a city somewhere on earth while only 3.4 billion people live in a rural area and by the year 2030 it's predicted that over 5 billion people around the world will live inside of a city despite the massive number of people living in cities today we haven't actually been living in cities for too long anatomically modern humans have been around for as long as three hundred and twenty thousand years but the earliest recorded cities date back to as little as 9,000 years ago from the time the first city began it was another seven thousand years before city would reach over a million people over the course of these nine thousand years the honour of the biggest city changed a new times sometimes to unexpected places some cities that topped this list in the past no longer even exist while others have managed to remain centers of prosperity for hundreds or even thousands of years regardless of their status now each one for a time represented the collective culture of an entire people group knowing that let's ask what were the biggest cities over time before I start I just want to give a warning especially for the earlier cities on this list sources will often conflict with one another and it's difficult for experts to reach a consensus for certain time periods but I did my best to get the clearest most definite evidence everything we know is based on what we've found in archaeological digs and there could always be new discoveries that change what we know about the world later on okay with that out of the way let's begin so it's well known that humans as a species most likely got their start here in Eastern Africa but as we spread out it was the Fertile Crescent what we'd call Mesopotamia the Levant or the Middle East that the first true civilizations were established today it looks like a desert but 10,000 years ago it was lush with vegetation and allowed early men to prosper the Fertile floodwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers led to many successful agricultural settlements throughout the region and it was here that the first system of writing keenya form was crafted and history began to be recorded around 7000 BCE what we could call the first city developed in this region at Jericho in the modern-day West Bank people had inhabited this area for much longer but it was only at this point that their settlements became permanent and evidence suggests anywhere between one and two thousand people inhabited this city a wall was constructed around Jericho to keep out animals and possibly invading nomads while within the city among the homes and other buildings stood the tower of Jericho the structure loomed over the city at 8.5 meters tall and was one of the first structures like this ever built you might be able to call it an ancient precursor to skyscrapers but by 6500 BCE we have evidence that chital who yoke in modern-day Turkey had surpassed Jericho to harbor upwards of 3,000 people and went on to contain anywhere between five and seven thousand people in its prime archeologists have found very little rubbish inside the house is suggesting they kept their mud play homes very clean and it's thought that people used their roofs as their main living space even making communal ovens on the roof for several different houses to use the next evidence for a larger settlement has been dated to 4000 BCE in the city of Uruk the city likely consisted of no less than 5,000 people from the name booth the Arabs called it civilization what we'd call Babylonia alley which eventually became the name of the modern day country the ruins of Uruk are now in iraq this was a very important city for the region and human development in general and we'll revisit it soon enough but by 3,800 BCE we have evidence that Dobrev OD in the ukraine hosted around 10,000 people possibly the first city to ever do so and satellite imagery suggests it had the capacity to house over 16,000 people but by 3700 BCE it's thought that era - again in Iraq hosted a similar number of inhabitants come 3600 BC he - more cities Maidan at and tally Yankee both also in modern-day Ukraine were known to have similar numbers though it's difficult to discern which of these cities was the biggest and they likely traded places often by 3500 BCE however who is known to have climbed to 14,000 people bringing it back to the top by 3,000 BCE this number had grown to 40,000 people 200 years afterwards this had doubled to 80,000 by this time several large population centers had sprung up in this region lagash in Iraq is thought to have had 60,000 inhabitants at the same time Mari in Syria had 50,000 by 2400 BCE Puma and gear su both had roughly 40,000 people and mohenjo-daro in the Indus River Valley had a similar population size as well Luke began to decline around this time and it's thought by 2300 BCE gear soo had overtaken her Luke with about 80,000 people as well by 2100 BCE the city of would again in Iraq and reached 100,000 people likely for the first time in human history and replaced gear so to become the most populous city on earth Buddha was at first a coastal city with the Persian Gulf offering access to the ocean but over time the coastline actually shifted away and left the city far inland consequently the population here dropped and the capital city of nearby Egypt Memphis replaced it at around 2000 BCE though it only had around 60,000 inhabitants at the time by 1800 BCE Mari in Syria had caught up to this number and a hundred years later Babylon also reached 60,000 people during this time again it's hard to tell which one was the biggest but by 1600 BCE a people group known as the Hyksos who had previously lived in the Levant area migrated and settled in the Nile Delta region the city of avarice was one of the closest settlements in this journey and the population here swelled up to 100,000 people making this the most populated city on the planet at the time but the Egyptians despised the Hicks's who had tried to establish their own dynasty in Egypt so around the year 1550 the upper Egyptians waged war against the Hicks's and drove them all out of Egypt India as a result of Eris was left in ruins without a population the capital of Egypt was also switched to Thebes causing Memphis to diminish as well and by 1500 BCE with a population of only around 60,000 Thebes was the largest city on earth a hundred years later Thebes remained on top and reached 80,000 people this city was a great center of Egyptian culture and many pharaohs chose to be buried near this city in what's called the Valley of the Kings where King Tut's tomb and plenty of others were found it's at this point however that something important starts to happen among the human population it'll be slow but massive in scale up until this point the cities have basically been exclusive to the Middle East region and it's safe to save this was the hub of human activity and the most populated region on the planet but around the year 1300 BCE yoonju in China surpassed Thebes with a population of 120,000 people becoming the first city outside this region to hold the title as the world's largest city and marks the start of the Chinese population overtaking the rest of the world for the rest of human history it's basically been a match of tug-of-war between the cities of China and the rest of the world Hyunjoo was the last capital of the Shang Dynasty and archaeologists have discovered several royal tombs within the ruins but around 1200 BCE the Egyptian Empire had reached its greatest extent having expanded both south to Nubia and north into the Levant this huge expansion was largely due to a single pharaoh ramses ii during his reign he went by the name Kusum a tercet F&F the first part of this name musa mater was translated into Greek as Ozymandias for some reason which is a name you might recognize in order to better control the northern regions of the empire and protect them from the Hittites ramses ii founded the city of pi ramses very close to where the old city of of eros once was this quickly became the new capital of the egyptian empire because of this its population rose to over 160,000 people making it the biggest city at the time ramses ii lived to the age of 90 before dying and the power of the Egyptian Empire decreased afterwards causing the city of Pi Ramses to decline as well by the year 1000 BCE 3,000 years ago there were three cities vying for the top spot in Egypt pi Ramses had declined but Thebes remained with a population of around 120,000 while Memphis still likely had around 100,000 Babylon was also around this size and housing in China wasn't far behind by 900 BCE however Thebes had further declined and housing had been made the center of the government for King Wu the first king of the jaw dynasty causing the city's population to blow up to over 125,000 making housing the biggest city for a time after King Wu came King Chen who allowed the city of Luo Yi at the time called Chang Zhu to be built in the eastern part of the Chinese Empire to enforce his control there after the city was completed King Chen moved here and by the time 700 BCE came around Luo Yi in China and Babylon in Iraq were vying for the top spot as both had amassed 200,000 people in 500 BCE the city of Lindsay in China at the time the capital of the state of Qi had also reached 200 thousand as well and these three cities were essentially even by 400 BCE however yondu was made the new capital of the state of yan and as a result pulled the head of the rest and reached 320 thousand inhabitants taking the top spot meanwhile back in the mediterranean region the trade city of Carthage and modern-day Tunisia also served as the capital of the Carthaginian Empire and overtook jadoo by the year three BCE reaching 500,000 or half a million people for the first time sadly parthak posed a huge threat to the Roman supremacy in the region and the Romans waged several wars against to the city collectively called the Punic Wars this led to many deaths and the Romans burned and destroyed many parts of the city and it's even said that 50,000 Carthaginians were stolen from the city and sold into slavery apparently the Romans did not mess around so Carthage didn't last too long in the top spot and that honor had actually most likely moved to Alexandria and Egypt by 200 BCE with a population of over 600,000 Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great in the year 332 BCE and served as the capital of Egypt while under Hellenistic rule when the Romans took over afterwards they left Alexandria as Egypt's capital and the city managed to thrive while under the rule of a foreign Empire by the year 100 BCE Alexandria reached an estimated population of 1 million people probably the first city in history to ever achieve this but right around the year 0 when before Common Era just became Common Era Alexandria was in decline and the Roman Empire was prospering as a result Rome stole the top spot from Alexandria also with around 1 million people Rome held on to this title for several hundred years and served as the shining capital of the Roman Empire until its demise but I'll be covering that in part two sorry I wanted to make this a single video but after a certain length my computer literally cannot render the video so if you're interested in seeing part 2 make sure you subscribe to this channel and check back soon if you're really interested and want to make sure I can get the next video done you can always support me on patreon which allows me to put more time and effort into these videos as well as improve the production quality of them these guys and more already have and it really helps me out so thank you to those who already supported me and there will be a link in the description if you're interested other than that give this video like check me out on Twitter and maybe tell me in the comments if you'd like to see a biggest country's over time video in the future or something similar Thanks [Music]
I need part 2!