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Lagash

Lagash1, whose remains are called Tell al-Hiba, was the largest city (but not the capital) of the Lagash Lugalate in the middle of the 21st century BCE2, and was the largest city in the world from 2075 to 2030 BCE3. At the end of the century it had been absorbed by the Ur Lugalate. Thereafter its importance declined. In 1800 BCE, it was part of the Larsa Lugalate, then conquered by Babilu (Babylon), then by Isin ("Second Dynasty of Babylonia or Dynasty of the Sea Land)4. It was subsequently ruled by the Kassites and then again by Babilu. The last building in Lagash occured toward the end of the first millenium BCE.

External References

Gudea statue from Lagash (now in the Louvre)

map showing part of Ur Lugalate, 2000 BCE map showing part of the Larsa Lugalate, 1800 BCE

map showing part of Isin Lugalate, 1600 BCE

map showing parts of Elamite Sunkiate and Kar-Duniash, 1360 BCE

map showing parts of Elamite Sunkiate and Kar-Duniash, 1200 BCE

map showing parts of Elamite Sunkiate and Babilu Lugalate, 1000 BCE

Footnotes

1. In Akkadian and Sumerian, the city name was written in Cuneiform. This cannot be rendered in most browsers although unicode for it exists.
2. A commonly used alternate chronology would push this range forward.
3. "List of cities that can have been the largest", in Tertius Chandler, Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth, 2nd ed. (The Edwin Mellen Press, 1987).
4. Georges Roux, Ancient Iraq, Penguin Books, 1992.