in its prime, from around 1200 to 1550, Great Zimbabwe was home to about 10,000 people. The state covered 1,779 acres, more than twice the area of New York’s Central Park.
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From Ancient Egypt to Carthage to the Malian Empire (with wealthy cities like Timbuktu) there are so many remarkable parts in Africa.
That seems... absolutely tiny? 7km^2, so a reasonably fit person could run around the entire country in an hour. Population of 10k at a time when the total population of Africa was in the tens of millions. Not a value judgement, but I'm honestly shocked how small those numbers are.
Rome was significantly more densely populated, but that can also be explained by geographic and economic factors (seafaring economies, &c.).
Edit: the area within the inner Servian Walls was ~1/3rd that of Great Zimbabwe (~2.5km^2).
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurelian_Walls#/media/File:Map...