Popular games like SimCity and Pharaoh are known to many, but there are plenty of great city builders you've probably never heard of. This list includes all challenging city-building video games that have ever hit the shelves, so it doesn't necessarily have all the more obscure or new city-builder games. If you're a fan of the Settlers franchise in particular, then you'll want to check out this list of the best games from the Settlers series. If you're only familiar with the SimCity franchise, then prepare to find a ton of other games that are less known but equally as fun.

Spanning the entire history of the genre, these builders are considered the best in the genre. These highly rated city-builder games for PC, mobile, and Mac are ordered by popularity, so only the greatest city-building games are at the top of the list. The best city building games offer more than enough variety for every type of gamer.