# What was your city before it was a city?



## Xelebes (Apr 1, 2007)

What was your city before it became settled down and established?

Edmonton was a couple trading forts, that became one when two rivalling companies amalgamated and one became abandoned.

Before that, it was a meeting place of Cree and Blackfoot peoples, where they traded and where they fought wars. North Saskatchewan River's deep valley acted as a great wall between the two peoples who would often wage war. Sometimes, you'll still hear the silent war still going on by the two peoples.


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## LMCA1990 (Jun 18, 2005)

Before Miami was a city, it was swamp land inhabited by cute lil creatures like alligators


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## tayser (Sep 11, 2002)

Melbourne belonged to the Wurundjeri people.


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## JustHorace (Dec 17, 2005)

Manila was a small Muslim settlement, before it became Asia's seat of Christianity.


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## RawLee (Jul 9, 2007)

Budapest was always a city,from the roman times. Started as Aquincum.


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## LMCA1990 (Jun 18, 2005)

^^ nice name


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## Xusein (Sep 27, 2005)

Hartford was a small settlement trading post known by the Algonquins as _Suckiaug_.

It was "discovered" by Dutch fur traders in 1614, and they set up a fort known as Fort Hoop as part of the colony of New Netherland in 1623. It wasn't controlled by English settlers until 1635.


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## hauntedheadnc (Aug 18, 2003)

The Connestee Indians had a village in the vicinity at least as far back as 200 AD, but the area where downtown stands now was the crossroads of two Cherokee Indian trading paths. The village of Eden Land, later called Morristown, later and finally called Asheville in 1797 got built at that crossroads, which is still the very center of the city today.


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## vid (May 29, 2004)

Before my city was a city, it was _two_ cities. Yeah. Wrap your head around _that_ one.


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## hauntedheadnc (Aug 18, 2003)

vid said:


> Before my city was a city, it was _two_ cities. Yeah. Wrap your head around _that_ one.


Civic consolidation is _hawt._


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## eusebius (Jan 5, 2004)

It was the territory that romans, bataves and frysians disputed.


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## LordMandeep (Apr 10, 2006)

The city which is Toronto today started of with a very anti-american history.

It was mostly populated by British loyalist in the late 1700's escaping the newly independent United States.

Then it was made the capital of Upper Canada and then it was looted and burned by the Americans in the war of 1812.

Now i may see why there is some resentment of Americans in our city lol...


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## _00_deathscar (Mar 16, 2005)

Fishing village, and not all that long ago either.


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## gladisimo (Dec 11, 2006)

Foster City was swamp land just 50 years ago.

SF has been a city since the 1800s, but boomed during the Gold Rush.

HK was a fishing post for the longest time, until the late 1800s when it was taken over by the British, the rest, as they say, was history.


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## tablemtn (May 2, 2006)

Portland, Oregon was founded in 1843 on a patch of land near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers called 'the clearing.' But before then, the area was occupied by a number of native villages - some were permanent settlements with longhouses and trading posts. The tribe was called the Multnomah, and they were a member of the Chinook group of tribes.


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## Siopao (Jun 22, 2005)

before the british came, Toronto was a meeting place for many aboriginal groups. Then the city was renamed to York by the british and then it was renamed to Toronto again lol.

"Toronto" literally means 'meeting place', i believe.


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## Xelebes (Apr 1, 2007)

RawLee said:


> Budapest was always a city,from the roman times. Started as Aquincum.



Surely there was a time when it was not a city - before the Romans, Celts and Slavs moved in.


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## LANative (Aug 28, 2005)

L.A. was just a tiny Spanish settlement in the late 1700s.


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## urban_addict (Nov 29, 2005)

Chicago was a field? IDK


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## RawLee (Jul 9, 2007)

Xelebes said:


> Surely there was a time when it was not a city - before the Romans, Celts and Slavs moved in.


Well,not as old as Rome, but still beats lot of the settlements on the planet. The very first cities would be in Iraq.
According to Wiki,it was a Celt settlement,when romans arrived around AD41-54.


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## FREKI (Sep 27, 2005)

Before Copenhagen was founded by Absalon in 1167 there was a small fishing village.. 

Human presence in the area dates all the way back to 4000 BCE however us Danes didn't invade Zealand until around 200AD forcing the Heruli and Jutes south..


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## PERUVIANMETALMUSIC (Aug 24, 2007)

lmcm1990 said:


> Before Miami was a city, it was swamp land inhabited by cute lil creatures like alligators


That is true. Don't forget of the manatees:nuts: :cheers: :cheers:


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## redstone (Nov 15, 2003)

Singapore's pre colonial past is unknown. Most probably a fishing village before being settled by the South Asian empires as a trading port in the 15th century or so. The old settlement was destroyed by the Portugese in the 1613 and Singapore island fell into obscurity, until the British came along in 1819 and established a trading post here.

Singapore's settlement was first recorded in the 2nd century AD. Singapore was ruled by Siam, Javanese, Malacca and Johor sultanates.


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## Sen (Nov 13, 2004)

always been a city.


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## Xelebes (Apr 1, 2007)

Sen said:


> always been a city.


Oh really now. I highly doubt that.


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## RawLee (Jul 9, 2007)

Xelebes said:


> Oh really now. I highly doubt that.


Why? there are places which are inhabited as a city for many thousand years. every city was nothing once, but it is pointless to tell that. 3-4thousand years,I think,can be accepted "always".


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## Sen (Nov 13, 2004)

the reason some of you can talk about what your city was before it became a city is because your cities developed in recent times when recording history is common, when humans first settled in the area around Beijing, they were literally dumb animals whose only concern is to eat and survive, they didn not record history and no one knew what Beijing was like before them, the earliest human activity appeared in Beijing around the era of Peking Man (250,000-400,000 years ago), and There were cities, in the vicinities of Beijing by the 1st millennium BC, and the capital of the State of Yan, one of the powers of the Warring States Period (473-221 BC), Ji (薊/蓟), was established in present-day Beijing. That is the earliest recorded history and no one knew what Beijing was like before that get it?

actually if you really want an answer, most of Beijing's area was underwater very long ago, only the southwestern part is the delta of some river, (yongding river, I think), the rest was shallow sea, and the mud carried into the sea by the river gradually became land.


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## Cristovão471 (May 9, 2006)

My city was dirt 100 years ago.


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## sk (Dec 6, 2005)

from wikipedia about nicosia or lefkosia(in greek)

Nicosia was a city-state known as Ledra or Ledrae in ancient times. The king of Ledra, Onasagoras, was recorded as paying tribute to Esarhaddon of Assyria in 672 BC. Rebuilt by Lefkos, son of Ptolemy I around 300 BC, Ledra in Hellenic and Roman times was a small, unimportant town, also known as Lefkothea. By the time it received its first Christian bishop, Trifillios, in 348, the town was called Lefkousia or Ledri.


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## LMCA1990 (Jun 18, 2005)

PERUVIANMETALMUSIC said:


> That is true. Don't forget of the manatees:nuts: :cheers: :cheers:


those fat bastards are too lazy to be cute  J/K they're cute 'cause they're like the overweight hippies of the sea :lol:


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## mgk920 (Apr 21, 2007)

Mr_Denmark said:


> Before Copenhagen was founded by Absalon in 1167 there was a small fishing village..
> 
> Human presence in the area dates all the way back to 4000 BCE however us Danes didn't invade Zealand until around 200AD forcing the Heruli and Jutes south..


What is 'BCE'?

Anyways, before Appleton, WI was here (about the 1830s), it was primal forest surrounding a wide and fast rapids in the Fox River in an area controlled by the Menominee Indians (a local aboriginal tribe). French traders and missionaries had been in the area for a couple of hundred years prior, but Appleton was not settled until industrial concerns were able to harness the river and its hydro power. Interestingly, that water power meant that Appleton was one of the first places anywhere to have electricity and was the very first place in the World to have an electric-powered transit system (it was abandoned in favor of petrol and diesel buses in 1930).

Also, a guy named Samual Appleton gave the local college (Lawrence University) its startup endowment and in gratitude, the local people named the city after him. Otherwise it would likely be called 'Grand Chute', after the French name for the river rapids.

Mike


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## mgk920 (Apr 21, 2007)

urban_addict said:


> Chicago was a field? IDK


IIRC, Chicago was originally a small aboriginal trading village at the mouth of the Chicago river and most of the rest of what is now the city was a stinking fresh-water marsh. The USArmy established Fort Dearborn at the site less than 200 years ago (after acquiring the area from the British after the War of 1812). A small non-aboriginal trading village then developed around the fort. The City of Chicago did not grow BIG until after the railroads arrived, turning the area into a major transport hub, in the second half of the 19th century.

Mike


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## Delirium (Oct 8, 2005)

Siopao said:


> before the british came, Toronto was a meeting place for many aboriginal groups. Then the city was renamed to York by the british and then it was renamed to Toronto again lol.
> 
> "Toronto" literally means 'meeting place', i believe.


rather apt name:yes:


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## FREKI (Sep 27, 2005)

mgk920 said:


> What is 'BCE'?


BCE is *B*efore *C*ommon *E*ra - it's a non religious way of saying BC..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Era


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## Qatar Son 333 (May 10, 2006)

well before doha became a city it was mainly a fishing and more importantly pearling but no body pearls anymore these days  only fishes for fish since shrimp fishing is banned.

Here are pictures fro the Qatar section of ssc

1947 Arial View of Doha Town









Doha 2006/2007

















you can see fishing is still here


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## LMCA1990 (Jun 18, 2005)

^^ that's a lot of fishing boats.


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## PedroGabriel (Feb 5, 2007)

Póvoa de Varzim, Portugal


Before the Romans conquered the region and established a Roman town with several villas with a factory to produce a popular fish condiment in the 1st/2nd century BC, the area was gained from sand dunes, swamps, and lagoons.

Póvoa's historic periods:


> Hunter-gatherers 200,000 BC - 4,000 BC
> Shepherds (fixed population) 4,000 BC - 900 BC
> original Celtic city (out of the current city area) 900 BC - 2st century BC (being slowly abandoned)
> Roman conquest, new urban area near the sea (current one) 2nd century BC - 5th century AD
> ...


stole this from Prof Godin's post 

City geography:

Roman period:









14th century (first neighbourhood -circled)









16 th century









1990s








today: (only city borders, urban area expands beyond it)


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## Ludi (Mar 21, 2007)

plz vote:

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=515609

thx


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## nygirl (Jul 14, 2003)

^^ What the hell does that have to do with the question this thread asks?


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## irutavias (Jul 15, 2007)

Mumbai was a bunch of islands with fishing villages before it became a financial hub.


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## Unionstation13 (Aug 31, 2006)

Indianapolis was swampy malaria filled area with the old national road, and dozens of cabins scattered. People moved to the area when debate for a new capitol was just a rumor. 
Washington street(old national road) was just a stump covered road that lead to the first covered bridge in Indiana, that was mossy, made of wood and riverstones. When the city was finally established(1821) and the street layout was finished, many people found their homes in the middle of streets, in two lots, allies, and on government land.


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## Mesh22 (May 5, 2006)

Melbourne was a port to feed the Gold Rush just north of what ıs todays cıty.


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## Northsider (Jan 16, 2006)

Like many other cities...a swampland.


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## DanielFigFoz (Mar 10, 2007)

Figueira da Foz before being a city, it was a town. :yes:


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## cello1974 (May 20, 2003)

Countryside - isn't that obvious?


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## Moren-o (Dec 9, 2005)

RawLee said:


> Yeah..army base with 40000 inhabitants,an amphitheatre,baths and such..it was a capitol. So thats why every medieval commanders set their camps on hills. Maybe they could watch the area from a valley,or a riverbank...Well,I personally believe a parisian more


I said it ORIGINATED as an army base. Of course it grew.
There were lots of Roman army bases on the banks of the Donau, so the reason is logistics.
Transport from base to base could be done by boat. And not from hill to hill on the road.


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## juanico (Sep 30, 2005)

@ Moren-o: before calling people "retards", I would like you to tell us about trading in Western Europe in 4,200 B.C. and what were the biggest trade centres then :|

The oldest settlement of Paris was discovered in Bercy, on the bank of the Seine, testifying of a permanent village there around 4,200 - 4,000 B.C. (others will say 4,000 - 3,800 B.C.). Among the objects discovered were...... boats. Men then knew basic farming (Chasséen culture), that's right, but given the location of the settlement and the objects excavated there is no doubt about the main activity of the village, is it?

They surely didn't chose to establish their village on the bank of the river because it was more convenient for trading... come on! :lol:


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## juanico (Sep 30, 2005)

ps: you might have misunderstood the thread: it is not about _'how your city became a city?'_ - trading, military base or anything else - it's how it was before...


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## Slartibartfas (Aug 15, 2006)

Before becoming a midsized town of a Roman province, Vienna was a small celtic city and before a celtic village most likely. And before the danube region was settled in prehistoric times it was the edge of the floodplain of the Danube. 

The geographic position was very interesting as it later on marked the crossing of two trading routes, the one along the danube, the other one from south to north. The location was the gate to the west at the very end of the alps that always has been a natural border and enabling this "gate" function.


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## Moren-o (Dec 9, 2005)

Xelebes said:


> First of all, fishes is plural of plural. Fish refering to a single type of fish and fishes refering to several types of fish.
> 
> I suspect the Seine River is rather broad where Paris is - lending it to become a fishing village. Agriculture would not have been used in Paris 6500 years ago, so it wasn't a farming village. Not all villages were trading spots either.


1. I am aware that fishes can be used as well in the sense of 'a number of species', but it was not correctly used in his sentence.

2. As I said before, you can't just label a village where people occasionally fish as a fishing village. Have you got any idea that 6500 years ago Europe was in Neolithic times? People in the area of modern day France lived in groups not larger than 100 people and lived mainly from cattle herding. If there was any fishing going on in those times, it wasn't in Paris but on the coast.


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## Moren-o (Dec 9, 2005)

juanico said:


> ps: you might have misunderstood the thread: it is not about _'how your city became a city?'_ - trading, military base or anything else - it's how it was before...


Ok, maybe I misinterpreted the subject of the thread.
But you can't call people who lived in those days an organised society who established a fishing village.
Of course they found boats and gear. But that's only because of occasional activity and not constant fishing.


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## RawLee (Jul 9, 2007)

RawLee said:


> Fishes live in the rivers too.





Moren-o said:


> ^^
> Omg, retards. First of all the plural of fish is fish.
> Of course people in Paris in those days would fish a little bit like in every city that has a river.
> But that doesn't make it a fishing village. Otherwise every damn city where a river runs through is a fishing village.





Moren-o said:


> 1. I am aware that fishes can be used as well in the sense of 'a number of species', but it was not correctly used in his sentence.
> 
> 2. As I said before, you can't just label a village where people occasionally fish as a fishing village. Have you got any idea that 6500 years ago Europe was in Neolithic times? People in the area of modern day France lived in groups not larger than 100 people and lived mainly from cattle herding. If there was any fishing going on in those times, it wasn't in Paris but on the coast.


how do you know what I wanted to say? and why cant fishes live in a river? only one specie lives in them?


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## Mahratta (Feb 18, 2007)

the Mumbai _area_ had an ancient port called Sopara under the Mauryans and earlier...traded with areas like China and Greece

This was in the 300s BCE


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## RawLee (Jul 9, 2007)

Moren-o said:


> 1. I am aware that fishes can be used as well in the sense of 'a number of species', but it was not correctly used in his sentence.
> 
> 2. As I said before, you can't just label a village where people occasionally fish as a fishing village. Have you got any idea that 6500 years ago Europe was in Neolithic times? People in the area of modern day France lived in groups not larger than 100 people and lived mainly from cattle herding. If there was any fishing going on in those times, it wasn't in Paris but on the coast.


so you say fish was imported from the coast? How capitalistic...I dont know what's the custom in your country,but people here do fishing in rivers.


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## RealVooDoo (Aug 3, 2007)

According to legend Rome was founded on April 21 753 BC, so it has been a city for almost 2760 years :nuts: 
Before that it has been a pastoral village since the 10th century BC.
Before that, the anciest settlement of the area is more or less 65.000 years old
Before that.... it was just 7 hills close to a river :lol: :lol:


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## Moren-o (Dec 9, 2005)

RawLee said:


> how do you know what I wanted to say? and why cant fishes live in a river? only one specie lives in them?


You don't use 'fishes' if you don't want to stress that you're talking about the different species. Can an english-speaking person confirm this please?


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## Moren-o (Dec 9, 2005)

RawLee said:


> so you say fish was imported from the coast? How capitalistic...I dont know what's the custom in your country,but people here do fishing in rivers.


Of course it wasn't 'imported' from the coast, but it was no mayor economic activity.
People here fish in rivers too but it's only a way of income for people who live on the coast, like in almost every country.


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## juanico (Sep 30, 2005)

Moren-o said:


> _[fishing]_ was no mayor economic activity.


What economy are you refering to? We are talking about Neolithic age :nuts:

Anyway I highly doubt that in these times the rudimentary canoes allowed men to fishing in rough seas/oceans like say the Atlantic. One more time we are talking about Neolithic... 

Back then Paris had many smaller rivers, ponds, and marshes which could have provided men with water/fish etc. or plain lands who would have been perfect for cattle herding, but no, the first (known) inhabitants of the place didn't chose to install their settlement near any of these, but right where the Seine is broad, so they had to build their village on piles... It appears to be obvious that the river was an essential element of their every day life and therefore fishing as well.


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## PedroGabriel (Feb 5, 2007)

RealVooDoo said:


> According to legend Rome was founded on April 21 753 BC, so it has been a city for almost 2760 years :nuts:
> Before that it has been a pastoral village since the 10th century BC.
> Before that, the anciest settlement of the area is more or less 65.000 years old
> Before that.... it was just 7 hills close to a river :lol: :lol:


:hilarious what do you mean by settlement, one thing is humans wandering there, another is a settler.



juanico said:


> What economy are you refering to? We are talking about Neolithic age :nuts:
> 
> Anyway I highly doubt that in these times the rudimentary canoes allowed men to fishing in rough seas/oceans like say the Atlantic. One more time we are talking about Neolithic...
> 
> Back then Paris had many smaller rivers, ponds, and marshes which could have provided men with water/fish etc. or plain lands who would have been perfect for cattle herding, but no, the first (known) inhabitants of the place didn't chose to install their settlement near any of these, but right where the Seine is broad, so they had to build their village on piles... It appears to be obvious that the river was an essential element of their every day life and therefore fishing as well.


In here fishing only started with the Romans, before the Celtic culture populations did fishing but was not a very common activity, they did some archaeological works and they found some evidences of fishing (a net or something). But too weak. This in an area that was full of fish. it doesn't happen very often today, but when i was a kid, I remember being scared of the huge fish swimming around my feet in the beach.

And put that in a river and 6,000 yrs ago, I have my doubts.


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## gabrielbabb (Aug 11, 2006)

Mexico City was an aztec city since about 3000 years ago and almost all the territory that now is city was a lake about more than 200 years ago


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