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by Perryman on January 22nd, 2007
Iraq is considered the cradle of civilization. The Garden of Eden was there. There is much in the way of secular archeological data that has been uncovered in Iraq to document it’s ancient history including evidence of life in the ancient city of Ur, where Abraham came from.
by Firebrand on January 22nd, 2007
China probably, but the middle east Egypt Iraq, Iran. Turkey all have history going back far further than any western civilisation can record.
The link between Turkey and Iraq is very strong historically although they only have one thing in common now and that is hatred and fear of the Kurds. Both countries have Christian shrines and places mentioned in the bible. In Turkey they still care for all the religious shrines although the country is Muslim. The Christian sites are beautifully kept and cared for, I have visited St pauls home and shrine in Tarsus a town almost as far as you can go before you hit what used to be Kurdistan.
by answerguru on March 15th, 2008
Iraq... ok Iraq might not exist at that time, BUT the place where Iraq now stand is the oldest known to mankind as Adam and Eve set their foot on that place for the first time
by drnima on December 16th, 2007
the problem is that most people consider turkey,afghanistan,iraq,syria and many other parts of the middle east as different countries while its an incorrect comparison,you cant consider the current map of the oldest part of the world,the midle east,while you talk about the history and these countries origin.what is proved ;they all used to be a part of Great Persia,which now a days is called Iran,since almost 6 decades ago.the oldest nation in the world is Iran which dates back to 6000 years ago.
by Answerbag Stuff on January 22nd, 2007
I think its Canada
by Halskiisaklink on January 22nd, 2007
In my opinion, it's a toss-up between Egypt, Iraq, Turkey and China. Take a look at these links for more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Chinese_history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_chronology
by TjoeBaxter is Hot Yo on October 25th, 2010
Mesopotamia...better known as the Middle East
by Cladvulk on October 15th, 2008
"History" technically refers to written documentation. Mere existance prior to extant documents belongs to the realm of pre-history and Archaeology. The oldest surviving written documentation are Egyptian hieroglyphics from about 3200 BC and cuneiform writings of Mesopotamia at about the same time.
However, the oldest continually inhabited city in the world is Damascus, Syria, which was founded sometime before 5000 BCE, and perhaps even earlier than 6000 BCE. Jericho was first settled even before that, but has been abandoned and resettled several times.
Nations in the modern sense, however, are really a modern idea and all have a fairly recent beginning, though Japan probably has the best claim to having the oldest continuous "national/cultural identity", dating back about 14 centuries. China's culture(s) is of course older, but they really aren't "one nation of one people", but several, and there have been many times the empire was divided and/or ruled by foreign dynasties.
Finally, though not countries, the Jews and the Gypseys are without a doubt the two oldest surviving cultures/nationalities today, each with origins over 35 centuries ago.
by Anonymous on July 16th, 2008
That would be present day Iraq at a location north of the ruins of the old city of Babylon. The location, and flattened ruins is a city named Akkad. There the Akkadian language was developed about 3900 BCE. No other written language came along until the Egyptians about 1200 years later. 100's of thousands of original documents. The writing media they chose was clay. Turned into bricks. Even a nuclear war wouldn't destroy them.
History is defined as being recorded by written record. To the guy mentioning Persia, that would be c contender for pre-history as civilizations arose ther. But for earliest civilizations, I would put up Jericho, Antioch, the island of Crete,Babylon, Ur, Ur-ak, . All of which date to between 8000 and 9500 BCE. They are still deciding just how old and which one.
by singwell-is off researching a lot on April 2nd, 2008
Do you mean written history? The oldest written documents come from Mesopotamia (modern Iran-Iraq). wiki says:
The original Mesopotamian writing system was derived from this method of keeping accounts, and by the end of the 4th millennium BC,[2] this had evolved into using a triangular-shaped stylus pressed into soft clay for recording numbers. This was gradually augmented with pictographic writing using a sharp stylus to indicate what was being counted. Round-stylus and sharp-stylus writing was gradually replaced by writing using a wedge-shaped stylus (hence the term cuneiform), at first only for logograms, but evolved to include phonetic elements by the 29th century BC. Around the 26th century BC, cuneiform began to represent syllables of spoken Sumerian. Also in that period, cuneiform writing became a general purpose writing system for logograms, syllables, and numbers, and this script was adapted to another Mesopotamian language, Akkadian, and from there to others such as Hurrian, and Hittite. Scripts similar in appearance to this writing system include those for Ugaritic and Old Persian.
--------
After that, Turkmenistan, China, Egypt, the Indus Valley and then the Phoenicians (whose script is the ancestor of all the European scripts, plus of the Arabic based and Hebrew ones)
BUT IF YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT HISTORY AS A WHOLE:
then you include prehistory. Prehistory involves assessing the remains left from cultures and civilisations and rebuilding those from the information gained.
In this, the Australian Aboriginals have the longest still existing culture, because they have left caved designs on walls dating back over 60 000 years. Even Europe and the Middle East cannot rival that.
by ExactlyTwentyLetters on March 15th, 2008
Iraq. The earliest historical record comes from Mesopotamia in the Fertile Crescent in what is now Iraq.
Africa is a continent people, not a country.
by Zack on March 2nd, 2008
Iraq I believe, but it wasn't called that in the ancient times though.
by Littlebirrd on March 2nd, 2008
If history is defined as a written record of man's past, then it would by definition be whichever country in which writing was first developed.
Which one was that again? Anybody?
by at1988 on March 17th, 2011
surly iran
by milanda on December 1st, 2010
Persia (Iran) was the first country
by milanda on December 1st, 2010
Persia (Iran) was the first coutry .
by mina12 on October 25th, 2010
ofcourse it is Iran according to wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_statehood
by mina12 on October 25th, 2010
ofcourse it is Iran according to Wikipedia.
check this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_statehood.
by Charlene2 on April 3rd, 2010
Persia (Iran today). However the first country ever existed was Egypt, but Persia was the first land human beings (probably Adam and Eve) lived in and some time later it became a country called Persia. Someone here said Iraq was the first land Adam and Eve lived, however just to let you know Iraq ( old Babylon) used to be a part of Persia. More than half of Persia's lands were taken (or stolen) during wars and some parts of the land later on became a different country called Babylon (Iraq today). Also some other countries like Afghanistan, some parts of India, Pakistan, Azarbaijan, and some other places used to be the lands of Persia (as you can see in Persia's old map), but unfortunately these lands were stolen from Persians due to the poor control of some of their kings over Persia and their loss in the wars. One of the worst wars Persia faced in the history was with the King of Egypt. He once pointed at his bald head and said I'll make Persia like my head, and he did, he won. This is how Persia has become Iran today. The size of Iran is like a size of a city of old Persia.
By the way , according to BBC News and even shown on British television, the world's historians have found evidences in year 2007 that the ever first land humanbeings started living in is called Kerman, which now is a city in Iran and has the best and most expensive rugs in the world.
by sam zagorakis on April 17th, 2009
Iran or persia is the oldest one...befor jesus persia had civilization...jesus wasnt born on that time...for the people who say that iran is not persia...it can be claimed it is...iranian language is persian...so what finally??? just becuase iran does not have democrasi and good goverment..it means that they did not have civilization??... iran was the first...
by sam zagorakis on April 17th, 2009
Iran or persia is the oldest one...befor jesus persia had civilization...jesus wasnt born on that time...for the people who say that iran is not persia...it can be claimed it is...iranian language is persian...so what finally??? just becuase iran does not have democrasi and good goverment..it means that they did not have civilization??... iran was the first...
by fred on August 4th, 2008
by fred on August 4th, 2008
by Mamad on July 16th, 2008
PERSIA (IRAN) you can find more Information in:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiroft_Civilization
by Mamad on July 16th, 2008
A new place was discoverd in PERSIA(IRAN) with more than 10000 years CIVILIZATION.It is the oldest one even older than the one in IRAQ.with this discovery PERSIA(IRAN) became older than HISTORY.
you can find more information in :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiroft_Civilization
by TreasureHunter on May 6th, 2008
To be specific South Africa. There is a world heritage site called the Cradle of Humankind. One has to consider that all the continents were join and then split from Africa. The natural progression soon followed. As man evolved so did the culture and history. The first homo sapiens were found on the Africa continent. Cave drawings are in abundance and tell of stories of the time. So sorry but the facts dont lie. The guy that said that Australia and its first inhabitants had a history of 60 000 years....well Archaeological finds within the Cradle of Humankind also include 2-million-year-old stone tools.
Human history starts here with no mythology involved.
by Nninee on March 15th, 2008
Well, whenever the first caveman drew a picture on a wall- That's the first bit of recorded history!
by LeMeThink on January 22nd, 2007
According to tradition, San Marino is known as the world's oldest republic. The tiny republic was founded by a Christian stonemason named Marino (or Saint Marinus) on September 3, in the year 301 C.E.
From:
http://geography.about.com/library/faq/blqzoldest.htm
by iwnit on May 10th, 2007
Well it depends on the definition of country and history.
Following settlement (in today's Turkey) was definitely very old:
"Çatalhöyük /ʧɑtɑl højyk/ (also Çatal Höyük and Çatal Hüyük, or any of the three without diacritics; çatal is Turkish for "fork", höyük for "mound") was a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlement in southern Anatolia, dating from around 7500 BC for the lowest layers. It is perhaps the largest and most sophisticated Neolithic site yet uncovered."
"However, it is more properly described as a large village rather than a true town, city or civilization."
An interesting point: it is probable that these people worshiped a female deity.
Quelle:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catal_huyuk
by Toecho on February 8th, 2007
Anyone choose India with its, mahenjo daro and harappa remains ?
by Anonymous on July 15th, 2008
100% iraq the land of eden garden and home of the first civilization
by Ullyses on January 22nd, 2007
If the bible is to be believed (and I see no reason to dispute it's historical parts, apart from the dating), then the area we now call Iraq has the oldest documented history. Of course this is not to say that there aren't areas where humanids lived previously, but their history was never documented, and I assume that's what you mean.
by SASSYWI-Q-Sassia-Jetpacking with NASCAR on January 30th, 2008
China and the Middle east.
by sloth2008 on April 18th, 2009
i would say ethiopia since thatys were humans were ment to have oringinated from
by Anonymous on June 7th, 2008
By virtue of the ability to write being the beginning of history, that would be the city of Akkad in the Levant (Mesopotamia). Located today in Iraq and south of Babylon. Writing first appeared about 3900 BCE on pottery stamps and clay tablets. Hundreds of thousands of documents have been discovered. Covered everything of trade, production, workers hours and output, tools etc. The Epic of Gilgamesh was a standard to learning the language. About a thousand years later Egyptians began developing their writing. But Akkadian was the only language for nearly 1000 years in written form, at least proven to have survived.
by PaulD1600 on September 29th, 2009
Perhaps a bit nitpicky, but the country with the oldest history is China. Let me first acknowledge that I assume that by "country", the question refers to a single, cohesive political and cultural entity. Although Iraq, i.e. Sumer does antedate Chinese history, Sumer as a country has not existed for more than a millenia, and Iraq has only existed since the British colonial days in the 1920s. China was first formed as a country in 221 B.C.E. making it the oldest existing country on the planet.
by Anonymous on August 14th, 2008
If you define 'history' as the written record - it is definitely China.
Otherwise, Africa
by philosopher-saint on May 6th, 2008
The one that started first?! ;-)
by Piso on March 15th, 2008
Africa becasue it is said humans came from africa in the first place and greece , roman are most likely orginally from ancient egypt that in africa
so Africa is my answer
by Osiris on January 1st, 2008
It is evident that most here are awswering this question from an Europian perspective.From a factual perpective taking all thing into account the oldest civilization and the origin of present man is the Nile
river vally,Ancient Mesopotamia was actually south of Egypt.The Chaldian town of Ur Birth place of Abraham was probably no more than a village since he was the first hebrew.Even if we use the bible as a historical
at that point had busling civilization with a written language,a moral code,stone masonary,and slaves for a couple of thousand years.This is very hard to realize looking at it from the Euro American perspective,but
the Greeks,and Romans learned from the Egyptians when they yet had a written language.Homer the first known Europian writer admits that he learned at the feet of the Egyptian priest.
by Amer_Z on January 4th, 2011
What is the oldest capital city of the world between Damascus and Rome.
by Amer_Z on January 4th, 2011
What is the oldest capital city in the world between Damascus and Rome.
by ankur9184 on December 16th, 2010
India is the worlds oldest country......It is also has the proof that India or (Bharatvarsha) is old as 5000B.C. the proof of its so old civilization seen from its Vedas.
by mohammad.ghassan on January 14th, 2011
Which country has the oldest history?
The world "history" can be interpreted in many ways depending on how you put it in a sentence.
I researched this topic after thinking, what is the last piece on information in history that we know where anything before it is just blank? (humans did not exist before that time!)
Being Muslim i believe that Adam and Eve were the first humans on earth. They have landed in in current day Iraq so thats where civilization started. But i wonder where there Dinosaurs when they came down to earth?
by mohammad.ghassan on January 14th, 2011
Which country has the oldest history?
The world "history" can be interpreted in many ways depending on how you put it in a sentence.
I researched this topic after thinking, what is the last piece of information in history that we know where anything before it is just blank? (humans did not exist before that time!)
Being Muslim i believe that Adam and Eve were the first humans on earth. They have landed in in current day Iraq so thats where civilization started. But i wonder where there Dinosaurs when they came down to earth?
by Effie_C on March 30th, 2011
You are all wrong!...The oldest country in the world is Greece,and the Aegean,..The anthropological findings in Trillia and Petralona, allowed Greece to be declared as the country of Anthropogenesis. Man branched out from the trunk of the Hominids, at the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch, 12 million years ago. Here are the intervals of the various epochs100 000 BC. Outset of Middle Palaeolithic
Spanned about 67,000 years. Man uses stones and bones in fashioning more sophisticated tools and weapons. Great leap forward of Astronomy, Geometry and Arithmetics..33 000 BC. Outset of Upper Palaeolithic
Spanned about 25,000 years. First temple of Delphi, made of laurel branches, which Apollon brought from Tempe valley, c. 31000 BC. New kind of chipped stone implements. Man still lives into the cave..... The culture of the caves has evolved to the conception of religion. Political interests while the Greek language disposes millions of words. [Program Ibicus, Prof. linguistic Mc Donald, University of California at Berkley]...............
by at1988 on March 17th, 2011
oh u dont know any thing aboat history thats nice
by My_2cents on December 1st, 2010
Turkey ?
by paularthur on September 24th, 2010
Undebatable evidence shows "civilization" started in "The Fertile Crescent" aka "The cradle of civilization" aka "The birthplace of writing" this area is now modern day Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Israel and the Palestinian Territories, Turkey, Iran. If you ever played a video and had the character Gilgamesh he's based on an ancient Sumerian poem. This region is what people used to call Uruk Proto Akkadia Guti Sumeria Armorite Babylon Cassite Hittite Assyria Neo Assyria Neo Babylon Perisa.... Egypt however was around the same time just not as civilized but there were early settlements both cultures do admit that... As far as people in general it's hard to say everyday it's something new but this is the most accurate I've come across - http://www.thenagain.info/webchron/MiddleEast/MiddleEast.html#Prehistory... Truthfully we won't have a definitive answer till we have the technology for flying cars and cities on the moon///
by eSKi on April 22nd, 2010
No one will ever know, the countries we do know today weren't the same back then. There will always be an older country than another. You can keep chasing it back to before humans existed. When you think about it realistically its a stupid question.
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Comments
I suppose that people are tired of hearing about Iraq. Thanks nevets.
by Perryman on January 22nd, 2007
Rated back up. Good answer Perryman.
by Wolfen on January 24th, 2007
Iraq is indeed a cradle of civilazation, but it is nowhere near the oldest country. The country of Iraq was formed by the British as an administrative unit in the early 20th century and thus isn't even as old as the United States. Does the question refer to a continuos political unit or an ethnic legacy?
by PaulyD on January 26th, 2007
You are right, "Iraq" is a new word. I should have said, "The nation formerly none as Mesopotamia".
by Perryman on January 29th, 2007
I think im going to disagree with that its not iraq
by rights4all on March 2nd, 2008
If you're looking at a modern day name for a geographic region, it's Syria. It just wasn't called Syria then. It was, indeed, Mesopotamia.
If you believe the story of Adam and Eve, (which I personally don't, but no issues here if you do) that is the beginning of society, but I believe a country necessarily has a government, not just a society.
by Siyanor on October 25th, 2010
That's not true!! The Garden of eden was located in East Africa.. ((READ)) Genesis 2:8,9,10,11,12,13,14,...
by trueservantminn on July 10th, 2011