Łódź vs Dijon

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Łódź (Polish: [wutɕ] (listen)), written in English as Lodz, is the third-largest city in Poland and a former industrial centre. Located in the central part of the country, it has a population of 679,941 (2019). It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located approximately 120 kilometres (75 mi) south-west of Warsaw. The city's coat of arms is an example of canting, as it depicts a boat (łódź in Polish), which alludes to the city's name. Łódź was once a small settlement that first appeared in 14th-century records. Despite being granted town rights in 1423, it remained the private property of the Kuyavian bishops and clergy until the late 18th century. The Second Industrial Revolution brought rapid growth in textile manufacturing and in population due to the inflow of migrants, notably Germans and Jews. Ever since the industrialization of the area, the city has struggled with multinationalism and social inequalities, which were documented in the novel The Promised Land by Nobel Prize-winning author Władysław Reymont. The contrasts greatly reflected on the architecture of the city, where luxurious mansions coexisted with redbrick factories and dilapidated tenement houses.

The industrial development and demographic surge made Łódź one of the largest cities in Poland. Under the German occupation during World War II, Łódź was briefly renamed to Litzmannstadt in honour of Karl Litzmann. The city's large Jewish population was forced into a walled zone known as the Łódź Ghetto, from which they were sent to German concentration and extermination camps. The city itself sustained insignificant damage during the war and became Poland's temporary seat of power in 1945. Łódź experienced a sharp demographic and economic decline after 1989. It was only in the 2010s that the city began to experience revitalization of its neglected downtown area. Łódź is ranked by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network on the “Sufficiency” level of global influence and is internationally known for its National Film School, a cradle for the most renowned Polish actors and directors, including Andrzej Wajda and Roman Polanski. In 2017, the city was inducted into the UNESCO Creative Cities Network and named UNESCO City of Film.

Source: Wikipedia

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Dijon (UK: , US: , French: [diʒɔ̃] (listen)) is in the prefecture of the Côte-d'Or department and Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in Northeastern France. In 2017, the commune had a population of 156,920; the Greater Dijon area had 250,516 inhabitants in 2007. The earliest archaeological finds within the city limits of Dijon date to the Neolithic period. Dijon later became a Roman settlement named Divio, located on the road from Lyon to Paris. The province was home to the Dukes of Burgundy from the early 11th until the late 15th centuries, and Dijon was a place of tremendous wealth and power, one of the great European centres of art, learning, and science.The city has retained varied architectural styles from many of the main periods of the past millennium, including Capetian, Gothic, and Renaissance. Many still-inhabited town houses in the city's central district date from the 18th century and earlier. Dijon architecture is distinguished by, among other things, toits bourguignons (Burgundian polychrome roofs) made of tiles glazed in terracotta, green, yellow, and black and arranged in geometric patterns.

Dijon holds an International and Gastronomic Fair every year in autumn. With over 500 exhibitors and 200,000 visitors every year, it is one of the ten most important fairs in France. Dijon is also home, every three years, to the international flower show Florissimo. Dijon is famous for Dijon mustard, which originated in 1856, when Jean Naigeon of Dijon substituted verjuice, the acidic "green" juice of not-quite-ripe grapes, for vinegar in the traditional mustard recipe. Dijon is also a green city with an important tertiary sector, as well as a regional economic center with a diversified fabric, with a traditional food-processing center (Dijon cassis cream and kir, gingerbread, Lanvin chocolate...) and a renowned pharmaceutical sector. The historical centre of the city has been registered since 4 July 2015 as a UNESCO World Heritage site as one of the components of the climates of the Burgundy vineyard .

Source: Wikipedia