Ashgabat vs Groningen

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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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Groningen (, also UK: , US: , Dutch: [ˈɣroːnɪŋə(n)] (listen); Gronings: Grun'n) is the main municipality as well as the capital city of the eponymous province in the Netherlands. It is the largest city in the north of the Netherlands and has 231,037 inhabitants (31 January 2019) on a total area of 180.21 km2 (69.58 sq mi), and land area of 168.93 km2 (65.22 sq mi) with a population density of 1,367 per km2 (3,540 per square mile).

It merged with Ten Boer and Haren municipalities on 1 January 2019. The Groningen-Assen metropolitan area has about half a million inhabitants. Groningen is an old city (more than 950 years) and was the regional power of the north of the Netherlands, a semi-independent city-state and member of the German Hanseatic League. Groningen is a university city, with students forming an estimated 25% of its total population.

Source: Wikipedia