10 of the oldest Cities in the world that you may not want to miss
By: George

Damascus

PhotoBy treyfluxfool

Damascus is the capital of Syria as well as one of the country's 14 governorates. The Damascus Governorate is ruled by a governor appointed by the Minister of Interior. In addition to being widely known as the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, Damascus is a major cultural and religious center of the Levant.

Jericho

PhotoBy Anthony Di Carlo

Jericho is a city located near the Jordan River in the West Bank of the Palestinian Territories. It is the capital of the Jericho Governorate, and has a population of over 20,000 Palestinians. Situated well below sea level on an east-west route 16 kilometres (10 mi) north of the Dead Sea, Jericho is the lowest permanently inhabited site on earth.

Byblos

Photo By cannes.oilman

Byblos is a Mediterranean city in the Mount Lebanon Governorate of present-day Lebanon under the current Arabic name of (جبيل Ǧubayl) and was also referred to as Gibelet during the Crusades. It is believed to have been founded around 5000 BC, and according to fragments attributed to the semi-legendary pre-Trojan war Phoenician historian Sanchuniathon, it was built by Cronus as the first city in Phoenicia. Today it is believed by many to be the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world.

Sidon

PhotoBy Suavemente77

Sidon is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located in the South Governorate of Lebanon, on the Mediterranean coast, about 40 km (25 mi) north of Tyre and 40 km (25 mi) south of the capital Beirut. Its name means a fishery. It is a city of 200,000 inhabitants who are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslims (approximately 80%), along with small communities of Christian Greek Catholics and Maronites and Shiite Muslims.

Gaziantep

Photo By tehkahyeim

Gaziantep is the capital city of the Gaziantep Province in Turkey. It is amongst the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world. Gaziantep is the sixth largest city in Turkey and the largest city in the country's Southeastern Anatolia Region.

Beirut

PhotoBy Debbini

Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon with a population ranging from some 1 million to over 2 million as of 2007. Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's coastline with the Mediterranean sea, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan Area, which consists of the city and its suburbs. The first mention of this metropolis is found in the ancient Egyptian Tell el Amarna letters, dating to the 15th century BC, and the city has been continuously inhabited since.

The Old City of Jerusalem

Photoby Jean-Michel BAUD >Flickr

The Old City is a 0.9 square kilometre (0.35 square mile) walled area within the modern city of Jerusalem; it lies within East Jerusalem. Until the 1860s this area constituted the entire city of Jerusalem. The Old City is home to several sites of key religious importance: the Temple Mount and its Western Wall for Jews, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for Christians, and the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque for Muslims.

Hebron

PhotoBy Tbass Effendi

Hebron is the largest city in the West Bank, . It is located in the southern West Bank, 30 km (19 mi) south of Jerusalem. It is home to some 163,146 Palestinians, and more than 500 Israeli settlers living in and around the Old Quarter. Hebron lies 930 meters (3,050 ft) above sea level, located in the Palestinian territories and the Biblical region of Judea. Since it is the traditional burial site of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah, the fathers and mothers of the Jewish people, it is the second-holiest place in Judaism, after Jerusalem. It is also holy to Muslims.

Gaza

Photoby selcuk.aral

Being a peninsula bounded by bodies of water to north, east, and south (the Golden Horn, Bosphorus, and the Sea of Marmara, respectively) and by the old city walls to west, this part of the city is essentially what used to be called Constantinople, as the rest of what is today Istanbul was part of independent cities, towns, villages, fields or even complete wilderness later absorbed by the city. This process is still going on as Istanbul grows with increasing speed.

Istanbul, or Byzantium as it was called then, was first settled by Greek colonists from Megara in Greek mainland in 667 BC. They founded their city at Seraglio Point (Sarayburnu) which is now occupied by Topkapı Palace. However, recent discoveries in a subway construction site in Yenikapı (on the southern coast of the peninsula) dates the very first date of Istanbul's settlement back to about 8000 years ago, which makes the city one of the oldest still-inhabited spots of the world.