Ashgabat vs Chandigarh

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Ashgabat (Turkmen: Aşgabat; Ашгабат, pronounced [ɑʃʁɑˈbɑt], Persian: عشق آباد‎; Russian: Ашхабад), formerly named Poltoratsk (Russian: Полтора́цк, IPA: [pəltɐˈratsk]) between 1919 and 1927, is the capital and the largest city of Turkmenistan. It is situated between the Karakum Desert and the Kopet Dag mountain range in Central Asia. It is also near the Iran-Turkmenistan border. The city was founded in 1881 on the basis of an Ahal Teke tribal village, and made the capital of the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic in 1924.

Much of the city was destroyed by the 1948 Ashgabat earthquake but has since been extensively rebuilt under the rule of Saparmurat Niyazov’s "White City" urban renewal project, resulting in monumental projects sheathed in costly white marble. The Soviet-era Karakum Canal runs through the city, carrying waters from the Amu Darya from east to west. Since 2019, the city has been recognized as having one of the highest costs of living in the world largely due to Turkmenistan's inflation and import issues.

Source: Wikipedia

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Chandigarh (local pronunciation: [tʃə̃ɳˈɖiːɡəɽʱ] (listen)) is a city, district and union territory in India that serves as the capital of the two neighbouring states of Punjab and Haryana. Chandigarh is bordered by the state of Punjab to the north, the west and the south, and by the state of Haryana to the east. It is considered to be a part of the Chandigarh Capital Region or Greater Chandigarh, which includes Chandigarh, and the city of Panchkula (in Haryana) and cities of Kharar, Kurali, Mohali, Zirakpur (in Punjab). It is located 260 km (162 miles) north of New Delhi and 229 km (143 miles) southeast of Amritsar. It was one of the early planned cities in post-independence India and is internationally known for its architecture and urban design. The master plan of the city was prepared by Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier, which transformed from earlier plans created by the Polish architect Maciej Nowicki and the American planner Albert Mayer. Most of the government buildings and housing in the city were designed by the Chandigarh Capital Project Team headed by Le Corbusier, Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry. In 2015, an article published by BBC named Chandigarh as one of the few master-planned cities in the world to have succeeded in terms of combining monumental architecture, cultural growth, and modernisation.

Chandigarh's Capitol Complex was in July 2016 declared by UNESCO as World Heritage at the 40th session of World Heritage Conference held in Istanbul. UNESCO inscription was under "The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier an outstanding contribution to the Modern Movement". The Capitol Complex buildings include the Punjab and Haryana High Court, Punjab and Haryana Secretariat and Punjab and Haryana Assembly along with monuments Open hand, Martyrs Memorial, Geometric Hill and Tower of Shadow and the Rock Garden. The city has one of the highest per capita incomes in the country. The city is the cleanest in India based on a national government study. The union territory also heads the list of Indian states and territories according to the Human Development Index. In 2015, a survey by LG Electronics ranked it as the happiest city in India over the happiness index. The metropolitan area of Chandigarh, Mohali and Panchkula collectively forms a Tricity, with a combined population of over 1,611,770.

Source: Wikipedia