Mahajanapadas and second urbanization

After the decline of Harappan urbanism, cities returned in the middle of the first millennium BCE in the Ganges valley, in what historians call the second urbanisation. Sixteen mahajanapadas, large territorial states and republics, competed for control of trade routes, iron resources and fertile land. Punch-marked coins, northern black polished ware and excavated cities such as Rajgir and Shravasti together prove that this was a real urban revival, not merely a literary memory of cities.