Throughout history, the planet has seen many civilizations rise and fall (the Aztecs, the Incas ...), but the honor of being the first can only be held by one, the one who raised the Sumerians around 3.500 BC.
The Sumerian civilization was to the south of the ancient Mesopotamia, an area of the Middle East located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that currently coincides with the non-desert areas of Iraq and northeast Syria.
The Sumerians, to whom the invention of the wheel and writing (two key discoveries for humanity), were also responsible for the appearance of the world's first city-states. Around 3000 BC there were at least 12 of them, which were very independent.
The inhabitants of this network of city-states that formed the Sumerian civilization shared the same culture and religion, although their rulers had total autonomy, that is, they ruled their city-states without any interference from the rest of the leaders of the Sumerian.