Dushanbe vs Strasbourg

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Dushanbe (Tajik: Душанбе, IPA: [duʃæmˈbe]; significance Monday in Persian) is the capital and largest city of Tajikistan. As of January 2020, Dushanbe had a population of 863,400 and as of 2010 that population was largely Tajik. Until 1929, the town was known in Russian as Dyushambe (Russian: Дюшамбе, Dyushambe), and from 1929 to 1961 as Stalinabad (Tajik: Сталинобод, Stalinobod), after Joseph Stalin. Dushanbe is located in the Gissar valley, bounded by the Gissar Range in the north and east and the Babatag, Aktau, Rangontau and Karatau mountains in the south, and has an altitude of 750--900 m. The town is divided into four districts, all named after historical figures: Ismail Samani, Avicenna, Ferdowsi, and Shah Mansur. In ancient times, what is currently or is near modern Dushanbe was settled by different empires and individuals, including Mousterian tool-users, various neolithic cultures, the Achaemenid Empire, Greco-Bactria, the Kushan Empire, and the Hephalites. In the Middle Ages, more settlements started near modern-day Dushanbe such as Hulbuk and its famous palace. In the 17th century to the early 20th, Dushanbe started to grow into a market village controlled at times by the Beg of Hisor, Balkh, and eventually Bukhara. Soon after the Russian invasion in 1922, the city was made the capital of the Tajik Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1924, which initiated Dushanbe's development and rapid population growth that lasted until the Tajik Civil War. Following the war, the city became capital of an independent Tajikistan and continued its growth and development into a modern city which now is home to many international conventions. Dushanbe's modern culture had its beginnings in the 1920s, where Soviet music, cinema, theatre, sculpture, film, and sports all started.

Music, primarily shashmaqam before the Soviet invasion, took off in the city as a result of Russian influence and local opera houses and symphonies. Tajik figures like Sadriddin Ayni contributed greatly to the development of Dushanbe's literature, which went through many changes during and after the Soviet period. Theater and movie both saw their infancy in the 1930s and were heavily influenced by Soviet tendencies. The design of Dushanbe, once neoclassical, transitioned to a minimalist and eventually modern style. The town is a centre for newspapers, radio stations, and television of the nation, with almost 200 newspapers and over a dozen television studios working in 1999. A lot of Dushanbe's education system dates from Soviet times and has a legacy of state control; even now, the greatest university in Dushanbe, the Tajik National University, is funded by the government. Dushanbe International Airport is the principal airport serving the city. Other forms of transport include the trolleybus system dating from 1955, the small rail system, and the streets that traverse the city. Dushanbe's electricity is primarily hydroelectric, produced from the Nurek Dam, and the aging water system dates from 1932. Tajikistan's health care system is concentrated in Dushanbe, meaning that the major hospitals of the country are in the city. The city constitutes 20 percent of Tajikistan's GDP and has large industrial, financial, retail, and tourism businesses. Parks and main areas of the city include Victory Park, Rudaki Park, the Tajikistan National Museum, the Dushanbe Flagpole, and the Tajikistan National Museum of Antiquities.

Source: Wikipedia

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Strasbourg (UK: , US: , French: [stʁazbuʁ, stʁasbuʁ] (listen); Bas Rhin Alsatian: Strossburi [ˈʃd̥ʁɔːsb̥uʁi] (listen), Haut Rhin Alsatian: Strossburig [ˈʃd̥ʁɔːsb̥uʁiɡ̊] (listen); German: Straßburg [ˈʃtʁaːsbʊʁk] (listen) Latin: Argentoratum) is the capital and largest city of the Grand Est region of France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located at the border with Germany in the historic region of Alsace, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin department. In 2017, the city proper had 280,966 inhabitants and both the Eurométropole de Strasbourg (Greater Strasbourg) and the Arrondissement of Strasbourg had 494,089 inhabitants. Strasbourg's metropolitan area had a population of 790,087 in 2017 (not counting the section across the border in Germany), making it the ninth-largest metro area in France and home to 13% of the Grand Est region's inhabitants. The transnational Eurodistrict Strasbourg-Ortenau had a population of 958,421 inhabitants.Strasbourg is one of the de facto four main capitals of the European Union (alongside Brussels, Luxembourg and Frankfurt), as it is the seat of several European institutions, such as the European Parliament, the Eurocorps and the European Ombudsman of the European Union. An organization separate from the European Union, the Council of Europe (with its European Court of Human Rights, its European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines most commonly known in French as "Pharmacopée Européenne", and its European Audiovisual Observatory) is also located in the city.

Together with Basel (Bank for International Settlements), Geneva (United Nations headquarters in Europe), The Hague (International Court of Justice) and New York City (United Nations world headquarters), Strasbourg is among the few cities in the world that is not a state capital that hosts international organisations of the first order. The city is the seat of many non-European international institutions such as the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine and the International Institute of Human Rights. It is the second city in France in terms of international congress and symposia, after Paris. Strasbourg's historic city centre, the Grande Île (Grand Island), was classified a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1988, the first time such an honour was placed on an entire city centre. Strasbourg is immersed in Franco-German culture and although violently disputed throughout history, has been a cultural bridge between France and Germany for centuries, especially through the University of Strasbourg, currently the second-largest in France, and the coexistence of Catholic and Protestant culture. It is also home to the largest Islamic place of worship in France, the Strasbourg Grand Mosque.Economically, Strasbourg is an important centre of manufacturing and engineering, as well as a hub of road, rail, and river transportation. The port of Strasbourg is the second-largest on the Rhine after Duisburg in Germany, and the second-largest river port in France after Paris.

Source: Wikipedia