Which spot on earth have the most human beings set foot?

Meggido has supposedly had more battles fought there than anywhere else in the world, but probably not more people living there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tel_Megiddo

Rome. By far.

Sailor Bob wrote:

I'll go with Sabarimala

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabarimala

40-50mm pilgrims/year for at least 200 years.

But no women between 10 and 50 because they might be menstruating!

I'm gonna throw in some criteria:

1. The city needs to be inhabited for at least the last couple millenia and by hundreds of thousands of people for at least the last few centuries.

2. It would definitely have to be a major international port city because then the city gets tons of visitors.

3. As some posters have said before, longevity might not be as important as recent size of population. For example, Damascus might have been inhabited for thousands of years, but places like Shanghai and Tokyo with tens of millions of people over the past century and more visitation.

4. Consider that the world's population has exploded over the past couple centuries and ease of transportation has allowed great visitation.

5. Density would help. Then you have more people stepping on the same place.

6. You can pretty much cross off the western hemisphere, because this part of the world didn't matter for a long time and we didn't get cities of a million people until the 20th century. In addition, most of our growth has been since World War 2, a very short period in human history.

Considering my self-created criteria, I would say some busy place in these cities would have the most unique human visitors over the history of human life:

London

Mumbai

Shanghai

Guangzhou or Szechen

Tokyo

Beijing

Maybe New York. A lot of people have been through there the last 150 years.

But most likely candidate: The Gates of Hell

And maybe this one:Constantinople (now Istanbul) was buzzing constantly after Rome fell and has 13 million in the metropolitan area today.

I thought we were looking for a "spot" not the metro area of a city.

I think spot means something a bit more localized than It must be NYC or Rome etc

Like this spot

http://www.robinsonrealestatecompany.com/image/KeyWest/southernmost.jpg

I think it might actually be one of the major airports. Atlanta International apparently had 90 million travelers in 2010. At that rate it wouldn't take long to catch up to some old city, would it?

With the rise in participation in road races I'm betting one of those portable toilets is going to move to the lead shortly.

I'd bet anything that the temple site in Jerusalem is the one single location that wins this discussion.

It wins the criteria of being a small geographical area. The Jews first built a temple there thousands of years ago, the temple was destroyed and rebuilt by Solomon, then later destroyed again. The Jews have preserved the site, so we know exactly where the temple was from the beginning. The Law of Moses required Israel to offer sacrifices regularly, so the majority of the Jews in history would likely have set foot on its grounds. It's still a pilgrimage location and receives millions of visitors each year.

Let's just call the discussion over, shall we?

I have no idea where learned your history, but all Sub-Saharan Africans were living in mud huts until Europeans showed them how to build houses in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The first great African civilization was Egypt 5000 years ago.

six toed conches too wrote:

I thought we were looking for a "spot" not the metro area of a city.

I think spot means something a bit more localized than It must be NYC or Rome etc

Like this spot

http://www.robinsonrealestatecompany.com/image/KeyWest/southernmost.jpg

I forgot to say it would be some heavily visited spot in one of the cities I listed. Like a popular market or something.

Freelove wrote:

I think it might actually be one of the major airports. Atlanta International apparently had 90 million travelers in 2010. At that rate it wouldn't take long to catch up to some old city, would it?

Good point. You might be on to something. Public transportation hubs seem to be a good place for absolute bundles of visitors. Locations that bottleneck, like security checkpoints in airports or turnstiles in subways, would be a good bet. Somebody before mentioned a turnstile in a Tokyo subway getting millions of users a day.

I would think airports like Atlanta, O'Hare, London Heathrow, Los Angeles, and more recently Beijing might be the answer. London Heathrow claims to have the most international visitors, which could mean more unique visitors, and that place has been busy for many decades.

The Mexican to US border?

+2 on the modern airport idea - that would have to beat an ancient city.

My guess is the narrow section at Terminal C at the Beijing International Airport, that is under the criteria of most unique people to step in one spot.

Beijing International is the second most busy airport in the world, second to Atlanta. However, I am guessing that Beijing serves more unique travelers than Atlanta.

See this map of Beijing International to see why I say Terminal C. You have to pass through C to get to D and E. Beijing International serves about 70 million per year. Say half go through the spot I mentioned, 35 million. Say half of those are unique, 17.5 million per year. Those kind of numbers would quickly add up to surpass other areas with a longer history.

http://chinaairlinetravel.com/airport-guide/beijing-international-airport/airport-map.htm

Side note, I heard Mick Jagger is the human being that has been seen, in person, by the most human beings.

old coach man wrote:

Two specific sites I can think of

St Peters Square

Masjid al-Haram

These are very good answers. I would tend to agree with Mecca.

German Fernandez's heal.

The entrance to Disneyland

If you're talking about a specific spot that can be documented I'd say it would be the line at a popular ride at an amusement park. What immediately comes to mind is Space Mountain at Disney World.