city, Relatively permanent and highly organized centre of population, of greater size or importance than a town or village. The first cities appeared during the Neolithic Period when the development of agricultural techniques assured surplus crop yields large enough to sustain a permanent population. These cities emerged in sites of early civilization, such as the Nile valley, the Indus valley, and the Wei River valley. Ancient Greece saw the creation of the city-state, which was important to the emergence of the Roman Empire as well as the medieval Italian trading centres of Venice, Genoa, and Florence. After the Middle Ages, cities came increasingly under the political control of centralized governments and served the interests of the nation-state. The Industrial Revolution accelerated urbanization and transformed Western city life, as factory cities grew rapidly in England, northwestern Europe, and the northeastern U.S. By the mid-20th century cities had become commonplace in countries around the world, with 30–60% of a country’s population living in its major urban centres. With the rise of the automobile, as factories, offices, and residences aged, came the growth of suburbs and urban sprawl in industrialized countries, though about the turn of the 21st century many cities experienced a period of rejuvenation.
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