Proto-city in the context of "Ubaid period"

Histria or Istros (Ancient Greek: Ἰστρίη) was founded as a Greek colony or polis (πόλις, city) on the western coast of the Black Sea near the mouth of the Danube (known as Ister in Ancient Greek) whose banks are today about 70 km away. In antiquity, it also bore the names Istropolis, Istriopolis, and Histriopolis (Ἰστρόπολις, Ἰστρία πόλις) or simply Istros/Histros (Ἴστρος). It is near the modern town of Istria, Romania.

It may be considered the first urban settlement on today's Romanian territory, founded by Milesian settlers in the 7th century BC and inhabited for at least 1,200 years. Earlier settlements related to the Cucuteni–Trypillia culture precede the settlement at Histria by several millennia, however lack key aspects which characterize urbanization in the concept of Polis and in our modern world. Therefore, it may be most accurate to categorize the Cucuteni-Trypillia settlements as proto-cities, and Histria as the first planned city in Romania.

This article lists the largest human settlements in the world (by population) over time, as estimated by historians, from 7000 BC when the largest human settlement was a proto-city in the ancient Near East with a population of about 1,000–2,000 people, to the year 2000 when the largest human settlement was Tokyo with 26 million.

Rome, Chang'an or Baghdad may have been the first city to have 1,000,000 people, as early as the 1st century or as late as the 8th century. Later cities that might have reached 1 million include Luoyang, Kaifeng, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Beijing, and Edo. There is wide agreement that London was the first city to reach 2 million and New York was the first to reach 10 million.

Çatalhöyük (English: Chatalhoyuk; /ˌtʃɑːtɑːlˈhuːjʊk/, cha-tal-HOO-yuhk; Turkish pronunciation: [tʃaˈtaɫhœjyc]; also Çatal Höyük and Çatal Hüyük; from Turkish çatal "fork" + höyük "tumulus") is a tell (a mounded accretion resulting from long-term human settlement) of a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic proto-city settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from approximately 7500 BC to 5600 BC and flourished around 7000 BC. In July 2012, it was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Çatalhöyük overlooks the Konya Plain, southeast of the present-day city of Konya (ancient Iconium) in Turkey, approximately 140 km (87 mi) from the twin-coned volcano of Mount Hasan.

Solnitsata (Bulgarian: Солницата, "The Saltworks") was a prehistoric town located in present-day Bulgaria, near the modern city of Provadia. It is the oldest salt production center in continental Europe (5500‑4200 BC). It was the first prehistoric urban center in Europe. Solnitsata was a fortified stone settlement - citadelle, inner and outer city with pottery production site and the site of a salt production facility; it flourished c. 4700–4200 BC. The settlement was walled to protect the salt, a crucial commodity in antiquity. Although its population has been estimated at only 350, Vassil Nikolov (bg) argues that it meets established criteria as a prehistoric proto-city.

Salt production drove Solnitsata's economy, and the town is believed to have supplied salt throughout the Balkans. A large collection of gold objects nearby has led archaeologists to consider that this trade resulted in great wealth for the town's residents — Varna Necropolis. Researchers suggest that some of the residential buildings in the settlement were two-story, a fact that indicates relatively advanced architectural planning in a prehistoric context. Nearby is the ancient Anhialos, whose livelihood was the extraction of sea salt. The extraction technology can be seen in the Salt Museum, Pomorie.