Eleven Ancient and Abandoned Cities from Byblos to Fatehpur Sikri

Start with the oldest claim on the list: Byblos, in Lebanon, is believed to have first been settled between 8800 and 7000 BC and to have been inhabited continuously since 5000 BC. It passed through Canaanite, Egyptian, Phoenician, Assyrian, Persian, Hellenistic, Roman and later rule, and it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Al-Ula in Saudi Arabia was also settled around 5000 BC and was once the capital of the Lihyanite kingdom. It lived as a market town on the incense trade route to the Levant, and 22 kilometers north lies Hegra, the Nabataean city of rock cut tombs and Saudi Arabia's first UNESCO World Heritage Site. Unlike most stops here, it is a living city, with 60,103 residents in 2022.

Thebes stood on the Nile in Upper Egypt, and Wikidata dates its founding to about 3200 BC. It was Egypt's capital for much of the Middle and New Kingdoms and the center of worship of Amun, and by around 1500 BC it had likely become the largest city in the world, with about 75,000 people. Its ruins now lie within modern Luxor.

Phoenician settlers founded Leptis Magna as a trading post on the Libyan coast in the 7th century BC, about 120 kilometers east of modern Tripoli. It grew under Rome, and after its native son Septimius Severus became emperor in 193 AD it gained a new forum, basilica, colonnaded street and triumphal arch. It was inscribed by UNESCO in 1982 and later placed on the list of heritage in danger.

Settlers from Heraclea Pontica in Bithynia founded Chersonesus in the 6th century BC on the Black Sea shore of the Crimean Peninsula, at the edge of present day Sevastopol. It was run as a democracy of elected archons and a council called the Damiorgi, and a citizens' oath sworn from the third century BC survives. UNESCO listed the site in 2013.

Paestum began as the Greek colony of Poseidonia, founded around 600 BC by settlers from Sybaris about 80 kilometers south of modern Naples. Its three well preserved Doric temples to Hera, Athena and Poseidon were built between roughly 550 and 450 BC, and the Romans renamed the city Paestum after it passed through Lucanian hands.

Colonists from Corinth founded Apollonia around 600 BC on the Aoos, or Vjose, river in what is now Albania. It flourished under Rome and hosted a school that drew students from across the empire, including the young Augustus. An earthquake in the third century AD silted its harbor, and the city was abandoned by the fourth century AD.

Cosa is a planned Roman colony founded in 273 BC on land taken from the Etruscans, on a rocky promontory near modern Ansedonia in Tuscany. A wall 1.5 kilometers long enclosed two hills, one with the forum and one with a Capitolium to Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, and its street plan was uncovered by excavations from 1948 to 1972 under the American Academy in Rome.

Angkor was the capital of the Khmer Empire, which began in 802 AD when Jayavarman II declared himself a universal god-king, and it was abandoned around 1431 after an Ayutthayan invasion. A 2007 study found it was the largest pre-industrial city in the world by surface area, covering at least 1,000 square kilometers with over a thousand temples, the most famous being Angkor Wat.

Shangdu was built between 1252 and 1256 by the architect Liu Bingzhong as Kublai Khan's summer capital, in Inner Mongolia about 350 kilometers north of Beijing, mixing Confucian city planning with steppe traditions. Marco Polo visited around 1275, and an account of its Xandu reached Coleridge, who wrote Kubla Khan. UNESCO listed the ruins in 2012.

End with the most recent founding: the Mughal emperor Akbar founded Fatehpur Sikri in 1571 as his capital on the site of the village of Sikri, near Agra, with a religious compound honoring the Sufi saint Sheikh Salim Chishti. Akbar left it in 1585 and it was deserted by 1610, but the 54 meter Buland Darwaza, the Jama Masjid and the Panch Mahal earned it UNESCO listing in 1986.