Cities and Urban Life in the Kushan Kingdom

The evolution of urban life in the Kushan period, between the first century BC and the fourth century AD, was influenced by the Hellenistic legacy of Alexander ‘the Great’ as well as by the traditional settled community structures of northern India and Pakistan. It was a period in which cities grew and flourished, fed materially and culturally by the developing trade routes that passed through Central Asia. Urban spaces started to be carefully planned and structured to accommodate bazaars, religious buildings, residential areas, and royal palaces, such as Taxila, now in northern Pakistan.