State · c. 2600–1900 BCE
Indus Valley cities flourish
Mohenjo-daro, Sindh (Pakistan)
In its mature phase the Indus civilisation built planned cities such as Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, each with perhaps 30,000–60,000 people, laid out on grids with baked-brick houses and covered street drains. Spread over more than 1,000 settlements from Afghanistan and Balochistan to Gujarat, it covered a larger area than Egypt and Mesopotamia combined, yet no clear palaces or temples have been found and its script is still undeciphered.
Why it mattered
The Indus cities were among the world's first urban societies, with some of the earliest known city sanitation, and show that early urban life could flourish without obvious palaces or royal monuments.
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