First of Nimrod's cities in Shinar (10:10) and the site of the tower (11:1-9). Its own name, Bab-ili, means 'Gate of God'; Genesis re-derives it from Hebrew balal, 'confuse' — a deliberate, polemical pun. One of the most excavated cities of the ancient world (the great ziggurat E-temen-anki likely informed the tower story). And the story is long: this is the same city that, under Nebuchadnezzar II, became the empire that besieged Jerusalem and carried Judah captive — for that later chapter of its life, see Babylon, which has its own entry.