Watch as cities are born all around the world over the last 6000 years.
How cities took over the world:
Maps reveal the rapid spread of urban areas over 6,
000 years
Scientists used archaeological, historical and census records to reconstruct rise and fall of cities through history
The first cities appear in the
Middle East around
Mesopotamia before 3,700BC and slowly spread around the world
But urbanisation explodes outwards from
Europe following the industrial revolution in the 1800s
More than half of the world's population currently lives in the sprawling concrete jungles that we call towns and cities.
But the growth and spread of these urban areas from their earliest beginnings as a collection of buildings around a strategic
point or centre of trade is still relatively poorly understood.
Now academics have used a trove of historical, archaeological and census data to produce maps that chart how urbanisation has grown to become the dominant form of habitation in the world.
Using archaeological, historical and census data, researchers have been able to reconstruct the rise and fall of cities around the world. They begin slowly in the Middle East before gradually spreading. The greatest concentration by the start of the
19th century is in Europe (cities from 3700BC to 1800AD illustrated)
They have been able to show how the first cities sprung up in the Middle East around 5,700 years ago and gradually began spreading to evolve into the vast metropolises of today.
The maps also reveal the changing fortunes of the world's great civilisations as their capital cities became centres of population before then being overshadowed by another.
For example, from around 2400BC the first sizeable
Ancient Egyptian cities along the
Nile, such as
Memphis, begin to appear.
The urban population appears to ebb and flow through the centuries with the rise and fall of the
Egyptian dynasties, but the cities appear to reach their height under
Roman rule in around 0AD.
By this stage
Rome is already a vast metropolis and the only sizeable city in Europe.
In around 1300BC the first sizeable city appears around the
Yellow River in
China with the arrival of the
Shang Dynasty, which had its capital in Yinxu, close to the modern city of
Anyang in
Henan province.
In around 700 BC the vast cities spring up in
Mexico as the
Maya began building their sprawling urban settlements.
However, it is not until the 19th century that urbanisation takes off spectacularly as the
Industrial revolution leads vast numbers of people to move from the country to cities for work in factories.
This urban spread can be seen starting in Europe and then blooming around the world as technology and industrialisation spread.
Dr
Meredith Reba, lead author of the research and an environmental scientist at
Yale University, said: 'To better understand urbanization today it is helpful to know what urbanization looked like through history.
'By understanding how cities have grown and changed over time, throughout history, it might tell us something useful about how they are changing today.'
The researchers, whose findings are published in the journal
Scientific Data, used data gathered by historians like Terius
Chandler who in
1987 estimated city level populations between 2250BC and
1975.
- published: 16 Jun 2016
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