Cities that have remained important for the longest times

[Verbose]

Londinium was a major city. It had the largest basilica of any northern Roman city.

Following its loss of power after the fall of Rome, London rose again to dominate the whole of Britain. By the high Middle Ages it was the premier mercantile city of northern Europe, and it's basically continued like that ever since. It was certainly important well before the Hundred Years War.

Already prior to the high Middle Age, London had a huge economical influence.

Scandinavian kings in the Viking age looked at it, knew a good thing when they saw it, and decided to try to build something like it back home. (Never really pulled it off though.)

The Danes could extract tons of minted silver from the Anglosaxons at spear-point, and still there always seemed to be more to be had in London.

So the logical conclusion was to try to get one of these money-making machines for themselves, so they wouldn't have to go through the hassle of nicking it.

 

[Farae]

Hm...canidate cities in China (besides Guangzhou).

1) Cheng Du was the capital of Shu in the Three Kingdoms era, and of Shu in the Warring States era (for a time at least), and is the political and culutral centre of Southwestern China.

2) Xi'an (Chang An), Chang An was the capital of over ten dynasties, and is one of the tenth largest cities in the nation. The city is almost as old as China it self (Xi'an is 3,100 years old) and is the capital of Shaanxi province.

3) Luo Yand, capital of the Later Han, the Wei, and the Jin, Luo Yang dates back to the Zhou dynasty. The White Horse Temple, which is the first Buddhist temple founded in China, was established in Luo Yang. For several centuries, Luo Yang was the center of Chinese culture and civilization.

 

[Mirc]

Rome has my vote!

 

[Xen]

I think you'll find I said only three legions were ever active at one time in Britain. Obviously the Danube was well defended but the comparison is still valid, 4 legions were in Pannonia and 5 were in Moesia stretched along a huge frontier from Singidunum to Troesmis. If Britannia were unimportant why bother stationing so many troops and rotating fresh troops at regular intervals?

1)9 legions along the border alone is over 45,000 soldires alone, combine this with a similer numbe rof auxilliaries, and you have 90,000 troops- take in the style of Roman deployment along this frontir, and it dwarfs in every respect the 30,000 troops total that Britian may have had

2)again, the importance of britian was primarilly political; Claudius needed as easy conquest to buffer his reputation with the army, and to win the love of the people- an adventure to the mysterous islands of the west, last bastion of the Celts was the perfect target- the peoples in it werent particuarly hard to fight, the Roman army already having adapted to such tactics, it had justifacation, and it had the bonus of being able to do what Julius caesar didnt- however, once you break it, you buy it, and the politics in Rome didnt support a weak leader- and no sign of weakness would be greater then giving up a Roman conquest, and its born out as until the last centuries of Roman rule, after the Government of the principate had long falled (the principate refers to the government of the early empire, and how it was essentially a constitutional monarchy, for the observers of the thread) that only the Emperors most popular with the army that got away doing this (IE; Hadrian and Aurelian) Once it was conqored, it would have been political suicide to give it up, and thier was no particuler reason to do so- true Britian wasnt the most important of provinces, but if thier was pressing need to consider giving up an unimportant province, then why consider it- and Hadrian sealed the comitiment of Rome to keep all the provinces that existed, even those backwaters like Britian.

 

[mrtn]

As I understand it Rome has been quite unimportant at times.
"My Lord, barbarians have ransacked our city!"

I don't know how old Timbuktu is, but it's been quite important for most of it's time, am I right?

 

[Israelite9191]

I thought about Timbuktu, but it was only important from app. 1325 (when Mansa Musa set himself to furthering Timbuktu as a trade center) to 1468 (when it was captured by Sunni Ali, who diverted trade eastward to Gao, which happened naturally anyway since that was where the new gold mines were). While a century and twenty years give or take is good, it is not enough. Now adays it is nothing more than a tourists destination with a glorious past. Shame, isn't it?

 

[Xen]

As I understand it Rome has been quite unimportant at times.
"My Lord, barbarians have ransacked our city!"

you must be forgetting the Papacy then, which was important through the entire extent of that period

 

[blindside]

Damascus seems like the best one listed so far.

 

[bigmeat]

Baghdad would be one, as it was built on top of the ruins of the capitol of the sassanid empire

 

[mrtn]

you must be forgetting the Papacy then, which was important through the entire extent of that period

How important was the Papacy when the French kidnapped the popes and forced them to live in Avignon?

 

[Plotinus]

The French didn't "kidnap" the Popes! Clement V *was* French and he didn't like Italy (there was considerable tension between the French and Italian contingents within the church at this time) so he chose to move to Avignon. Those of his successors who tried to move back to Rome were thwarted by hostility from the Romans, not machinations on the part of the French.

 

[Japanrocks12]

Every city was somewhat of importance to their respective countries. And for long times might I add.

 

[Ad Hominem]

Athens, hands down. Beats the crap of every other city

 

[PrinceOfLeigh]

Athens, hands down. Beats the crap of every other city

Why?

10 chars

 

[craig9897]

Tenochitlan, aka Mexico City. not even close, next question

 

[mrtn]

The French didn't "kidnap" the Popes! Clement V *was* French and he didn't like Italy (there was considerable tension between the French and Italian contingents within the church at this time) so he chose to move to Avignon. Those of his successors who tried to move back to Rome were thwarted by hostility from the Romans, not machinations on the part of the French.

Don't try to confuse me with the facts!
Let me rephrase then: The French, in the person of their spiritual leader, kidnapped the name and moved to France. Happy now?

 

[privatehudson]

Athens, hands down. Beats the crap of every other city

In all fairness Athens wasn't exactly a vitally important city for it's entire history. It spent a fair few centuries as little more than a provincial town/small city. By the time of the war of independence it had barely 5000 people living in it - compare that to more than a million living in London at the same time, or over 300,000 in ancient times and you get some idea of just how small the city had become.

 

[Thangorodrim]

Changan of China was capital of a WHOLE LOT of dynasties, and is still an important city (in china).
EDIT: whoops, already posted

 

[Thangorodrim]

Ah. Wikipedia says that it Chang'an has been the capital of 17 dynasties and for a total of over 1200 years. During the Tang dynasty it was THE biggest, baddest city on the blue marble like face of the Earth.
Oh yeah baby.

 

[Kyriakos]

I dont know why my bid was met with such apathy
In my view it is a serious candidate though, since it has:
a) capital city status in the past (capital of ancient Macedonia, hellenistic era/ then again for a very short period in the 13th century)
b) continious major city status (hellenistic/roman/byzantine/ottoman/modern)
c) other: 2 epistles in the bible adressed to its citizents/ ww1 ally stronghold and organization center in southeastern Europe.
d) reasonably important today; over 1 million citizents.

Probably the fact that i live here makes the bid seem less positive, but it shouldnt be so much a factor