• Question: What is the first country ever?

    Asked by alan1421 to Anil, Blanka, Cees, Emma, Mike on 3 Jul 2012.
    • Photo: Michael Cook

      Michael Cook answered on 3 Jul 2012:

      I’ve had a bit of a look around – it seems that the first properly settled area that might be considered a country or nation is in the part of the world now called Iraq and Iran, in the Middle East near the Persian Gulf.

      In the southeast of Iraq there was a city called Ur, which was part of the Sumerian Empire. The Sumerians might be the first people to be recorded as founding a major city and having what we now call a country!

      I might be wrong about this, I don’t know if anyone can find any hard sources. Our understanding of history changes all the time as we find better ways of investigating the past. We might know more about the first country in the future!

    • Photo: Emma Trantham

      Emma Trantham answered on 3 Jul 2012:

      Oooh good research Mike – I didn’t know that.

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