Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
It's really too early to tell: 5,000 years or so of spotty written history is a pittance, and only 200 years or so into the industrial age, it is very, very early days.
Having said that, I chose Jerusalem, at the crossroads of major trading routes in the pre-industrial age, a flashpoint in many a struggle for power, from the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians (plus those that I've missed), to the successors of Alexander and the Romans, to the Arabs and Turks, and near the center of oil in the industrial age, so still a flashpoint in the struggle for power, long shrouded in religious ideology, in a region that connects Asia, Africa, Europe and, by extension, the Americas.
And if and when the oil runs out, they may discover something else vital above or below the ground in the region that humans will trade with and kill each other for.
I nominate London - birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, headquarters of the largest empire the world has ever seen, and still one of the world's essential cities.
I nominate London - birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, headquarters of the largest empire the world has ever seen, and still one of the world's essential cities.
Most important in the Early Modern era (1600-1900) maybe but all-time no way!
London just reached 100.000 people for the first time in 1300.
Rome - it's pretty much been the center and inspiration for the western world for almost as long as it's existed.
Everyone should visit Rome when they get the chance btw.
Actually Rome has been at the periphery of the western world since the Europe of Charlemagne, and it still is today (in the European sovereign debt crisis, Italy is included among the peripheral countries, the PIIGS, to take an ongoing contemporary example).
Rome was the center of the Mediterranean world, a world that's been broken for a long, long time, a break-up that culminated, well, around the time of Charlemagne, the father of western Europe.
Nevertheless, indeed, everyone should visit Rome when they get the chance, but also Istanbul, Vienna, Moscow, Paris, London, New York.
Athens has been irrelevant since around 325BC, the death of Alexander the Great, better to look to Constantinople, Cairo has only been relevant in modern times, especially since the Suez Canal, better to look to Alexandria, while the capital of the ancient Egyptians before Alexander moved around.
How is Baghdad winning against Istanbul, Athens, Cairo and Beijing?
I guess those people who voted for it think that it's the same as Babylon.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.