Conference dates: 11 – 13 November 2013
Call for papers deadline: 1 March 2013
Venue: Dutch National Museum of Antiquities, Rapenburg 28, Leiden, Netherlands
As centres which created, fostered and disseminated cultural, religious, socio-economic and political developments, pre-modern Asian cities were instrumental in generating urban culture of great diversity and the highest complexity. The conference seeks to explore Asian cities during their crucial period of urban formation and activity.
The conference aims to examine Asian pre-modern cities through three major thematic strands, covering a wide geographic expanse throughout Asia (from Pakistan to Japan) and a time depth of cultural development across five millennia (from the Bronze Age through 14th century Angkor to 18th century East Asia). The conference will provide a multi-disciplinary forum and we invite participation from the fields of archaeology, economy, geography, history, historical anthropology, philology, sociology, as well as (modern) urban planning and urban morphology.
Pre-modern Asian cities will be explored from three major perspectives:
1. Processes of urban development
This theme seeks to address factors that explain the foundation and development of cities, the period they flourished and their subsequent decline, abandonment and/or ‘rebirth’.
2. The urban economy
This strand focuses on the cities’ economy, infrastructure and logistics, within urban centres and in relation to their hinterlands.
3. The social fabric of the city
The city’s internal organization, its external social connections, and the ‘cosmopolitanism’ of cities are the focus of the third thematic cluster.
More information:
OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Monique Abud (January 13, 2013). Patterns of early Asian urbanism. URBACHINA. Retrieved October 8, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/v2bz