From around 3000 BCE, southern Mesopotamia held a patchwork of independent city-states — among them Uruk, Ur, Lagash and Kish — each comprising a walled city, its irrigated hinterland and outlying villages. Each was centred on a temple complex dedicated to a patron deity and ruled by figures titled lugal ('big man'/king) or ensi, who organised defence, irrigation and offerings. Their power rested on the new tools of writing, record-keeping, taxation and large-scale canal management. The cities competed and warred over land and water.
These were the first known states and among the first true cities, establishing kingship, the temple-centred urban core and bureaucratic administration as the basic template of political and urban order in the ancient Near East.