TODAY, ABOUT 4 billion people — more than half the world’s population — reside in urban settings. But urban life began some 6,000 years ago, when tens of thousands of people first crammed together in one place.
Which ancient city rose first? Cities began popping up in the Indus Valley of present-day Pakistan and India more than 4,000 years ago, in China over 3,000 years back, and in Central America in the centuries straddling 1 B.C. and A.D. 1.
But the earliest were in the Middle East. About 10,000 years ago, soon after farming began in ancient Mesopotamia, the site of Jericho in the present-day West Bank featured massive stone walls, enclosing a settlement of an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 residents. By 9,000 years ago, Çatalhöyük, located in present-day Turkey,…