WE CLING to mountain sides, float on lakes. We gather around water, by rivers and lakes. We gather in millions, or dozens. Humans have settled in groups for I don’t know how long, building mega-cities like Tokyo, and tiny villages that are dots on a map.
A small village on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, Tanzania.
School girls in hijab walk the narrow alleyways of Stonetown, the Zanzibari capital.
A typical street in Somaliland's port town of Berbera. The town in blessed with not cooling sea breezes, but furnace blasts of baked air from the interior. Day time is for sleeping. The cool of the night is better suited to work.
A typical street scene, Saigon, Vietnam, mid 1990s.
Crossing the road in Saigon, 1993. Don't panic. Don't stop. Just go, slowly but surely.
Cityscape of My Tho in Vietnam's Mekong Delta, 1993.
Naghsh-e Jahan Square and Emam Mosque lit up at night. Esfahan, Iran.
Rooftop view of Yazd's ancient quarter, Iran.
Cape Town, South Africa, seen from Table Mountain.
Despite its size, Persepolis in Iran may have been largely a ceremonial capital.
The village of Kandovan, in Iran's far west, is around 800 years old. The voclanic cliff into which the people build is quite new, at around 1500 years.
Ski fields, hiking and chair lifts provide a welcome relief from the noise and pollution in Iran's capital, Tehran.
Houses line the steep slope of Rasht, in the mountains near the Caspian Sea., Iran.
The Syrian city of Rasafa had existed since before Biblical times. It was abandonded after Mongol and Turk invasions in the 1200s.
The southern Syrian town of Bosra viewed from its fort.
Old city buildings, mosques and minarets viewed from Aleppo's Citadel, 2005.
The wealthy Roman trading city of Serjilla reached its peak around 500AD. Did these beautifully preserved, fine stone buildings survive Syria's brutal war?
Columns and streets dot the landscape of Palmyra, the ancient Roman town in the Syrian desert.
Lights over Beirut, Lebanon.
The harbour in Byblos, Lebanon, where ships have passed since the time of the Pharoahs.
Sidon is one of many cities in the Levant with a deep history, dating back 5,000 years or more. The 800 year old crusader fort is a recent addition.
Domed roofes of the hammam, minaret and the bazaar, Tripoli, Lebanon.
Away from the Nile, Egypt is largely desert. Oasis towns like this one at Dakhla are dotted around.
A sandstorm engulfs the desert town of Farafra, in Egypt's Western Desert.
A town hides behind the dunes, Al Qasr, Egypt.
Office buildings press up against a cricket ground in central Kobe, one of Japan's major cities.
Playing with the wide angle function on my camera, Shinjuku crossing.
A reflection at Shinjuku station, Japan.
An overgrown garden in a Shinjuku demolition zone.
Massive office towers abut a small park, Shinjuku, Tokyo.
A small green lung under pressure in one of the world's most populous cities, Tokyo.
Evening buses jam the streets of downtown Nairobi, Kenya.
Downtown Nairobi skyline.
Probably over 9000 years old, Sanliurfa, Turkey, is home to 2 million Arab, Turk, Amrenian, Kurdish and Syrian people.
A city probably existed at Hasankeyf 4000 years ago. Many civilizations have built here, but modern Turkey has damned the city, the people displaced, the town flooded.
One of the world's great city for over 1500 years, Istanbul.
Istanbul, one foot in Europe, the other in Asia, has been a cross roads between east and west, Islam and Christianity, Africa and more for a long time.
Largely abandoned by the 18th century, Sauran, near Turkistan in southern Kazakhstan survived invasion by the Mongols, and rose to importance under the White Horde and later the all conquering Timur.
Turkestan, in Kazakhstan's south, thrived in the 13-14th centuries as the White Horde and later Timur controlled trade on the fabled silk roads.
Venetians, Ottoman, Crusaders, British and now Russians, have created the stunning town of Corfu, Greece.