Alexandria vs Stralsund

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Alexandria ( or ; Arabic: الإسكندرية‎ al-ʾIskandariyya; Egyptian Arabic: اسكندرية‎ Eskendereyya; Coptic: ⲣⲁⲕⲟϯ Rakodī; Greek: Αλεξάνδρεια Alexandria) is the second-largest city in Egypt and a major economic centre. With a population of 5,200,000, Alexandria is the largest city on the Mediterranean - also called the Bride of the Mediterranean by locals - the sixth-largest city in the Arab world and the ninth-largest in Africa. The city extends about 40 km (25 mi) at the northern coast of Egypt along the Mediterranean Sea. Alexandria is a popular tourist destination, and also an important industrial centre because of its natural gas and oil pipelines from Suez. Alexandria was founded in c. 331 BC by Alexander the Great, king of Macedon and leader of the Greek League of Corinth, during his conquest of the Achaemenid Empire. An Egyptian village named Rhacotis existed at the location and grew into the Egyptian quarter of Alexandria. Alexandria grew rapidly to become an important centre of Hellenistic civilization and remained the capital of Ptolemaic Egypt and Roman and Byzantine Egypt for almost 1,000 years, until the Muslim conquest of Egypt in AD 641, when a new capital was founded at Fustat (later absorbed into Cairo).

Hellenistic Alexandria was best known for the Lighthouse of Alexandria (Pharos), one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World; its Great Library (the largest in the ancient world); and the Necropolis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages. Alexandria was the intellectual and cultural centre of the ancient Mediterranean world for much of the Hellenistic age and late antiquity. It was at one time the largest city in the ancient world before being eventually overtaken by Rome. The city was a major centre of early Christianity and was the centre of the Patriarchate of Alexandria, which was one of the major centres of Christianity in the Eastern Roman Empire. In the modern world, the Coptic Orthodox Church and the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria both lay claim to this ancient heritage. Following the Arab conquest of Egypt in AD 641, the city was plundered and lost its significance before re-emerging in the modern era. From the late 18th century, Alexandria became a major centre of the international shipping industry and one of the most important trading centres in the world, both because it profited from the easy overland connection between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, and the lucrative trade in Egyptian cotton.

Source: Wikipedia

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Stralsund (German pronunciation: [ˈʃtʁaːlzʊnt]), Swedish: Strålsund) is a Hanseatic city in the Pomeranian part of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It is located at the southern coast of the Strelasund, a sound of the Baltic Sea separating the island of Rügen from the mainland.The Strelasund Crossing with its two bridges and several ferry services connects Stralsund with Rügen. The Western Pomeranian city has been the capital of the Vorpommern-Rügen district since the 2011 district reforms. It is the fourth-largest city of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and, together with Greifswald, Stralsund forms an Oberzentrum, one of four high-level urban centers of the region.

Stralsund was granted city rights in 1234 and was one of the most prospering members of the medieval Hanseatic League. In 1628, during the Thirty Years' War, the city came under Swedish rule and remained so until the upheavals of the Napoleonic Wars. From 1815 to 1945, Stralsund was part of Prussia. Since 2002, Stralsund's old town with its rich heritage is honored as a UNESCO World Heritage, along with Wismar in Mecklenburg. The main industries of Stralsund are shipyards, fishing, mechanical engineering, and, to an increasing degree, tourism, life sciences, services and high tech industries, especially information technology and biotechnology.

Source: Wikipedia