Babylon

Babylon was an ancient Mesopotamian city on the lower Euphrates in what is now Hillah, Iraq, roughly 85 kilometers south of Baghdad, first raised to prominence in the eighteenth century BC when the Amorite king Hammurabi made it the seat of the Old Babylonian Empire. It reached its greatest extent under Nebuchadnezzar II of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, who rebuilt the city between 604 and 561 BC with the blue-glazed Ishtar Gate, one of eight monumental gates, part of which was later reconstructed in Berlin's Pergamon Museum, the Etemenanki ziggurat dedicated to the god Marduk, and the Esagila temple complex; the Hanging Gardens attributed to Nebuchadnezzar for a homesick wife are described in later ancient sources, though their existence and location remain disputed among historians. Twice in its history, around 1770 to 1670 BC and again from about 612 to 320 BC, Babylon is thought to have been the largest city in the world, and it may have been the first city ever to hold more than 200,000 people. UNESCO inscribed Babylon as a World Heritage Site in 2019.