Crawley vs Damascus

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Crawley (pronunciation ) is a large town and borough in West Sussex, England. It is 28 miles (45 km) south of Central London, 18 miles (29 km) north of Brighton and Hove, and 32 miles (51 km) north-east of the county town of Chichester. Crawley covers an area of 17.36 square miles (44.96 km2) and had a population of 106,597 at the time of the 2011 Census. The area has been inhabited since the Stone Age, and was a centre of ironworking in Roman times. Crawley developed slowly as a market town from the 13th century, serving the surrounding villages in the Weald. Its location on the main road from London to Brighton brought passing trade, which encouraged the development of coaching inns. A rail link to London opened in 1841. Gatwick Airport, nowadays one of Britain's busiest international airports, opened on the edge of the town in the 1940s, encouraging commercial and industrial growth. After the Second World War, the British Government planned to move large numbers of people and jobs out of London and into new towns around South East England.

The New Towns Act 1946 designated Crawley as the site of one of these. A master plan was developed for the establishment of new residential, commercial, industrial and civic areas, and rapid development greatly increased the size and population of the town over a few decades. The town contains 14 residential neighbourhoods radiating out from the core of the old market town, and separated by main roads and railway lines. The nearby communities of Ifield, Pound Hill and Three Bridges were absorbed into the new town at various stages in its development. In 2009, expansion was being planned in the west and north-west of the town, in cooperation with Horsham District Council, which has now become a new neighborhood named Kilnwood Vale, but it is not in Crawley. Economically, the town has developed into the main centre of industry and employment between London and the south coast. Its large industrial area supports manufacturing and service companies, many of them connected with the airport. The commercial and retail sectors continue to expand.

Source: Wikipedia

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Damascus ( də-MASS-kəs; Arabic: دِمَشْق‎, romanized: Dimašq [diˈmaʃq], Syrian Arabic: [dɪˈmaʃʔ] Syriac : ܕܰܪܡܣܘܩ) is the capital of Syria; it became the country's largest city in the early 2010s, following the decline in population of Aleppo during the battle for the city. It is colloquially known in Syria as aš-Šām (الشَّام) and titled the "City of Jasmine" (مَدِينَة الْيَاسْمِين Madīnat al-Yāsmīn). Damascus is a major cultural center of the Levant and the Arab world. The city had an estimated population of 2,079,000 as of 2019. In south-western Syria, Damascus is the center of a large metropolitan area of 2.7 million people (2004). Embedded on the eastern foothills of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range 80 kilometres (50 mi) inland from the eastern shore of the Mediterranean on a plateau 680 metres (2,230 ft) above sea level, Damascus experiences a dry climate because of the rain shadow effect.

The Barada River flows through Damascus. Damascus is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. First settled in the second millennium BC, it was chosen as the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate from 661 to 750. After the victory of the Abbasid dynasty, the seat of Islamic power was moved to Baghdad. Damascus saw its importance decline throughout the Abbasid era, only to regain significant importance in the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods. Today, it is the seat of the central government and all of the government ministries. As of September 2019, eight years into the ongoing Syrian Civil War, Damascus was named the least livable city in the Global Liveability Ranking.

Source: Wikipedia