It was a double city, built on either side of the Euphrates, and adjoining its suburb of Borsippa, once an independent town.

Babylon seems to have been a colony of Eridu, and its god, Bel-Merodach, called by the Sumerians "Asari who does good to man," was held to be the son of Ea, the culture-god of Eridu.

E-Saggil, the great temple of Bel-Merodach, rose in the midst of Babylon; the temple of Nebo, his "prophet" and interpreter, rose hard by in Borsippa.

Its ruins are now known as the Birs-i-Nimrud, in which travellers have seen the Tower of Babel.
In the neighbourhood of Babylon were Kish (_El-Hymar_) and Kutha (_Tel-Ibrahim_); somewhat to the north of it, and on the banks of the Euphrates, was Sippara or Sepharvaim, whose temple, dedicated to the Sun-god, has been found in the mounds of Abu-Habba.

Sippara was the northern fortress of the Babylonian plain; it stood where the Tigris and Euphrates approached most nearly one another, and where, therefore, the plain itself came practically to an end.