Athens vs Cairo

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Athens ( ATH-inz; Greek: Αθήνα, romanized: Athína [aˈθina] (listen); Ancient Greek: Ἀθῆναι, romanized: Athênai (pl.) [atʰɛ̂ːnai̯]) is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning over 3,400 years and its earliest human presence started somewhere between the 11th and 7th millennium BC.Classical Athens was a powerful city-state. A center for the arts, learning and philosophy, home of Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum, it is widely referred to as the cradle of Western civilization and the birthplace of democracy, largely because of its cultural and political impact on the European continent, and in particular the Romans. In modern times, Athens is a large cosmopolitan metropolis and central to economic, financial, industrial, maritime, political and cultural life in Greece. Athens is a Beta global city according to the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, and is one of the biggest economic centers in southeastern Europe. It has a large financial sector, and its port Piraeus is both the largest passenger port in Europe, and the second largest in the world.The Municipality of Athens (also City of Athens), which actually constitutes a small administrative unit of the entire city, had a population of 664,046 (in 2011) within its official limits, and a land area of 38.96 km2 (15.04 sq mi). The Athens Urban Area (Greater Athens and Greater Piraeus) extends beyond its administrative municipal city limits, with a population of 3,090,508 (in 2011) over an area of 412 km2 (159 sq mi). According to Eurostat in 2011, the functional urban area (FUA) of Athens was the 9th most populous FUA in the European Union (the 6th most populous capital city of the EU), with a population of 3.

8 million people. Athens is also the southernmost capital on the European mainland and the warmest major city in Europe. The heritage of the classical era is still evident in the city, represented by ancient monuments and works of art, the most famous of all being the Parthenon, considered a key landmark of early Western civilization. The city also retains Roman and Byzantine monuments, as well as a smaller number of Ottoman monuments, while its historical urban core features elements of continuity through its millennia of history. Athens is home to two UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the Acropolis of Athens and the medieval Daphni Monastery. Landmarks of the modern era, dating back to the establishment of Athens as the capital of the independent Greek state in 1834, include the Hellenic Parliament and the so-called "architectural trilogy of Athens", consisting of the National Library of Greece, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and the Academy of Athens. Athens is also home to several museums and cultural institutions, such as the National Archeological Museum, featuring the world's largest collection of ancient Greek antiquities, the Acropolis Museum, the Museum of Cycladic Art, the Benaki Museum and the Byzantine and Christian Museum. Athens was the host city of the first modern-day Olympic Games in 1896, and 108 years later it hosted the 2004 Summer Olympics, making it one of the few cities to have hosted the Olympics more than once.

Source: Wikipedia

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Cairo ( KY-roh; Arabic: القاهرة‎, romanized: al-Qāhirah, pronounced [ælˈqɑːhɪɾɑ] (listen), Coptic: ⲕⲁϩⲓⲣⲏ) is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world. Its metropolitan area, with a population of over 20 million, is the biggest in Africa, the Arab world, and the Middle East, and the 6th-largest in the world. Cairo is associated with ancient Egypt, as the famous Giza pyramid complex and the ancient city of Memphis are situated in its geographical location. Located near the Nile Delta, Cairo was founded in 969 AD by the Fatimid dynasty, but the property composing the present-day city was the site of early national capitals whose descendants stay visible in parts of Old Cairo. Cairo has long been a centre of the region's cultural and political life, and is titled"the city of a thousand minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture. Cairo is considered a World City with a"Beta +" classification based on GaWC.Cairo has the oldest and largest film and music industries in the Arab world, as well as the world's second-oldest institution of higher learning, Al-Azhar University.

Many international media, businesses, and organizations have regional headquarters in the city; the Arab League has had its headquarters in Cairo for the majority of its existence. With a population of over 9 million spread over 3,085 square kilometers (1,191 sq mi), Cairo is definitely the largest city in Egypt. An additional 9.5 million individuals reside in close proximity to the city. Cairo, like many other megacities, suffers from high levels of traffic and pollution. The Cairo Metro is one of the only two subway systems in Africa (the other being in Algiers, Algeria), and ranks amongst the fifteen busiest in the world, with over 1 billion annual passenger rides. The market of Cairo was ranked first in the Middle East in 2005, and 43rd internationally on Foreign Policy's 2010 Global Cities Index.

Source: Wikipedia