Damascus | |
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State | Damascus Governorate |
Country | Syria |
Capital | |
Population | 1711000 |
Postcode | 2277 |
Damascus ( də-MASS-kəs; Arabic: دِمَشْق, romanized: Dimašq [diˈmaʃq], Syrian Arabic: [dɪˈmaʃʔ] is the capital of Syria; it became the country's largest city in the early 2010s, after the decrease in population of Aleppo during the struggle for the city. It's colloquially known in Syria as aš-Šām (الشَّام) and titled the"City of Jasmine" (مَدِينَة الْيَاسْمِين Madīnat al-Yāsmīn). Damascus is a major cultural centre of the Levant and the Arab world. The town 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 feet ) above sea level, Damascus encounters a dry climate because of the rain shadow effect.
Dnipro | |
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State | Dnipropetrovsk Oblast |
Country | Ukraine |
Capital | |
Population | 1080486 |
Dnipro (Ukrainian: Дніпро [d⁽ʲ⁾n⁽ʲ⁾iˈprɔ] (listen); Russian: Днепр, romanized: Dnepr [dʲnʲepr]), previously called Dnipropetrovsk (Ukrainian: Дніпропетро́вськ [ˌd⁽ʲ⁾n⁽ʲ⁾ipropeˈtrɔu̯sʲk]; Russian: Днепропетро́вск, romanized: Dnepropetrovsk [dʲnʲɪprəpʲɪˈtrofsk]) from 1926 until May 2016, is Ukraine's fourth-largest city, with about one million inhabitants. It is located in the central-eastern part of Ukraine, 391 kilometres (243 mi) southeast of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on the Dnieper River, after which it is named. Dnipro is the administrative centre of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. Administratively, it is incorporated as a city of oblast significance, the centre of Dnipro municipality and extraterritorial administrative centre of Dnipro Raion. It has a population of 990,724 (2020 est.).
Archeological findings suggest that the first fortified town in the territory of present-day Dnipro probably dates to the mid-16th century. Other findings suggest that the town Samar, now a neighborhood in Dnipro's Samarskyi District, existed in the 1520s.Known as Ekaterinoslav (Russian: Екатериносла́в, romanized: Yekaterinoslav [jɪkətʲɪrʲɪnɐˈsɫaf]; Ukrainian: Катериносла́в, romanized: Katerynoslav [kɐtɛrɪnoˈslɑu̯]) until 1925, the city was formally inaugurated by the Russian Empress Catherine the Great (Russian: Екатерина, romanized: Ekaterina - hence its then name) in 1787 as the administrative centre of the newly-acquired vast territories of imperial New Russia, including those ceded to Russia by the Ottoman Empire under the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (1774).