Varanasi
Possibly Earth's oldest continuously inhabited city—settled before Rome, sacred since before recorded history. Economy built on death (the Ganges cremation ghats), silk (500,000 weavers producing Banarasi brocade), and 3,000 years of unbroken pilgrimage.
Varanasi may be the oldest continuously inhabited city on Earth—settled before Rome was founded, before the pyramids were complete, before the written histories that would later try to date it. By the second millennium BCE, a settlement on the left bank of the Ganges was already a centre for Vedic religion, philosophy, and trade, famous for muslin, silk, perfumes, and ivory carving. The Buddha gave his first sermon at nearby Sarnath in the sixth century BCE. The Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang visited in 635 CE and found a city of thousands of temples. Varanasi has been continuously inhabited for at least 3,000 years, possibly longer—a living archaeological record of South Asian civilization.
The city's economy was built on death and cloth. The Ganges at Varanasi is considered the most sacred stretch of India's holiest river: Hindu belief holds that dying here, or having one's ashes scattered in the river, breaks the cycle of reincarnation. The burning ghats—Manikarnika and Harishchandra—have operated continuously for millennia, creating an entire economy around pilgrimage, cremation, and the rituals of mourning. Priests, boatmen, flower sellers, and wood merchants sustain a death economy that predates any modern industry.
The other pillar is silk. Banarasi weaving has a documented history spanning 2,000 years, though the craft reached its zenith during the Mughal period (sixteenth century onward), when Persian artisans introduced gold and silver brocade techniques. Nearly half a million workers—predominantly Momin Ansari Muslims—produce the Banarasi saris that remain essential to Indian weddings. But the industry faces an existential threat: power looms produce replicas at a fraction of handloom cost, and Chinese silk imports undercut both. Over 51% of Varanasi's manufacturing workers are in spinning and weaving, making the city's industrial base dangerously concentrated in a sector under technological assault.
Modern Varanasi also hosts Banaras Locomotive Works (one of India's largest locomotive manufacturers) and Bharat Heavy Electricals, providing industrial counterweight to the textile and pilgrimage economies. The city's population exceeds 1.2 million. Prime Minister Modi, who represents Varanasi in Parliament, has directed infrastructure investment including a new airport terminal and river-front development. But the fundamental economic logic hasn't changed in three millennia: people come to pray, to die, and to buy cloth. The Ganges flows past, accepting all of it.