Sumerian city-states
| The ancient Near East |
|---|
| Regions and States |
|
Mesopotamia • Akkadian Empire • Assyria • Babylonia • Neo-Assyrian Empire • Neo-Babylonian Empire • Sumer Egypt • Ancient Egypt |
| Archaeological Periods |
| Chronology • Bronze Age • Bronze Age collapse • Iron Age |
| Languages |
| Akkadian • Aramaic • Assyriology • Cuneiform script • Elamite • Hebrew • Hittite • Hurrian • Phoenician • Sumerian • Urartian |
| Literature |
| Babylonian literature • Hittite texts • Sumerian literature |
| Mythology |
| Babylonian mythology • Hittite mythology • Mesopotamian mythology • Egyptian mythology |
| Other topics |
| Assyrian law • Babylonian astronomy • Babylonian law • Babylonian mathematics • Cuneiform law |
The earliest cities in history appear in the ancient Near East. The area of the ancient Near East covers roughly that of the modern Middle East; its history begins in the 4th millennium BC and ends, depending on the interpretation of the term, either with the conquest by the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BC or that by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC.
The largest cities of the Bronze Age Near East housed several tens of thousands. Memphis in the Early Bronze Age with some 30,000 inhabitants was the largest city of the time by far. 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 50–60,000, while Niniveh had some 20–30,000, reaching 100,000 only in the Iron Age (ca. 700 BC).