Ancient Cities

The Arab world holds a remarkable concentration of cities that have never stopped being cities. Damascus and Aleppo both claim among the longest records of continuous habitation anywhere; Byblos and Jericho reach back further still.

Some were built as statements of power. Baghdad was laid out as a perfect circle in 762 to be the Abbasid capital. Cairo was founded as al-Qahira by the Fatimids in 969 and became, over the following centuries, the largest concentration of medieval Islamic architecture in the world. Kairouan was established as the base for the Islamic conquest of North Africa and stayed as its centre of learning.

Others grew from trade. Petra and Palmyra taxed the caravans; Fez and Marrakesh sat where the Saharan routes met the Atlas; Zabid, Aden and Muscat lived from the Indian Ocean; Timbuktu turned gold and salt into libraries.

And some were left behind entirely — Hegra, Ur, Leptis Magna, Carthage, Volubilis, Meroë — abandoned early enough that their plans survive more completely than any inhabited city could manage.