List of oldest continuously inhabited cities
This is a list of present-day cities by the time period over which they have been continuously inhabited as a city. The age claims listed are generally disputed. Differences in opinion can result from different definitions of "city" as well as "continuous habitation", and historical evidence is often disputed. Caveats to the validity of each claim are discussed in the "Notes" column.
Africa
North and Northeast Africa
East Africa
West Africa
Central Africa
Southern Africa
Americas
North America
South America
Asia
West Asia
Central and South Asia
East Asia
| Name | Historical region | Present location | Continuously inhabited since | Notes |
| Yanshi, Henan | Xia dynasty | c. 1900 BC | ||
| Luoyang | Shang dynasty | c. 1600 BC | ||
| Handan | Jin, Zhao | c. 1080 BC | ||
| Beijing | Ji, Yan | c. 1045 BC | Paleolithic Homo sapiens lived in the caves from about 27,000 to 10,000 years ago. | |
| Zibo | Qi | c. 1045 BC | The Lord of Qi, Jiang Ziya, set the capital of his manor at Yingqiu, which is today's Linzi District. | |
| Jingzhou | Chu | c. 689 BC | ||
| Weinan | Qin | c. 668 BC | ||
| Hefei | Zhou dynasty | c. 650 BC | The Viscount of Lu was asked to set the capital of his manor at Luyi, which is in the north of today's downtown Hefei. | |
| Suzhou | Wu | 514 BC | ||
| Taiyuan | Jin | c. 497 BC | ||
| Nanjing | Wu | c. 495 BC | Fu Chai, Lord of the State of Wu, founded a fort named Yecheng in today's Nanjing area. | |
| Chengdu | Shu | c. 400 BC | The 9th Kaiming king of the ancient Shu moved his capital to the city's current location from today's nearby Pixian. | |
| Changsha | Chu | c. 365 BC | ||
| Kaifeng | Wei | c. 364 BC | The State of Wei founded a city called Daliang as its capital in this area. | |
| Chongqing | Ba | c. 316 BC | ||
| Liaoyang | Yan | c. 279 BC | ||
| Guangzhou | Qin dynasty | 214 BC | Some traditional Chinese histories placed Nanwucheng's founding during the reign of Ji Yan, king of Zhou from 314 to 256 BC. It was said to have consisted of little more than a stockade of bamboo and mud. | |
| Kashgar | Shule Kingdom | 2nd century BC | The city of Kashgar was the capital of the Iranic Shule Kingdom and served as a major hub of the Silk Road. | |
| Pyeongyang | Gojoseon | 194 BC | Built as the capital city of Gojoseon in 194 BC. | |
| Gyeongju | Silla | 57 BC | Built as the capital city of Silla in 57 BC. | |
| Seoul | Baekje | 18 BC | Built as the capital city of Baekjae in 18 BC. | |
| Osaka | Japan | 390 AD | It was inhabited as early at the 6th–5th centuries BC, and became a port city during the Kofun period. It temporarily served as the capital of Japan from 645 to 655. | |
| Nara | Japan | 708 AD | Built in 708 and became the capital city in 710 as Heijō-kyō. | |
| Kyoto | Japan | 710 AD | Shimogamo Shrine was built in the 6th century, but the city was officially founded as Heian in 710 and became the capital city in 794 as Heian-kyō. |
Southeast Asia
Europe
Oceania
| Name | Historical region | Present location | Continuously inhabited since | Notes |
| Hagåtña | Captaincy General of the Philippines | 1668 AD | Founded by Spanish Jesuit friar Diego Luis de San Vitores, originally a Chamorro settlement. It is located in Guam, an island that is an unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. | |
| Sydney | New South Wales | 1788 AD | Oldest city in Australia. Radiocarbon dating suggests human activity occurred in and around Sydney for at least 30,000 years, in the Upper Paleolithic period. However, numerous Aboriginal stone tools found in Sydney's far western suburbs' gravel sediments were dated to be from 45,000 to 50,000 years BP, which would mean that humans could have been in the region earlier than thought, although they lived exclusively as hunter-gatherer tribes until the early British colonial period. The first people to occupy the Sydney region were an Indigenous Australian group called the Eora. | |
| Hobart | Tasmania | 1803 AD | Second-oldest city in Australia. Prior to British settlement, the area had been occupied for at least 8,000 years, but possibly for as long as 35,000 years, by the semi-nomadic Mouheneener tribe, a sub-group of the Nuennone, or South-East tribe. | |
| George Town | Tasmania | 1804 AD | Third-oldest city in Australia. | |
| Newcastle | New South Wales | 1804 AD | Fourth-oldest city in Australia. | |
| Launceston | Tasmania | 1806 AD | Fifth-oldest city in Australia. | |
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