Ghent vs Groningen

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Ghent ( GHENT; Dutch: Gent, [ɣɛnt] (listen); French: Gand, [ɡɑ̃] (listen); traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded in size only by Brussels and Antwerp. It is a port and university city. The city originally started as a settlement at the confluence of the Rivers Scheldt and Leie and in the Late Middle Ages became one of the largest and richest cities of northern Europe, with some 50,000 people in 1300. The municipality comprises the city of Ghent proper and the surrounding suburbs of Afsnee, Desteldonk, Drongen, Gentbrugge, Ledeberg, Mariakerke, Mendonk, Oostakker, Sint-Amandsberg, Sint-Denijs-Westrem, Sint-Kruis-Winkel, Wondelgem and Zwijnaarde.

With 262,219 inhabitants at the beginning of 2019, Ghent is Belgium's second largest municipality by number of inhabitants. The metropolitan area, including the outer commuter zone, covers an area of 1,205 km2 (465 sq mi) and has a total population of 560,522 as of 1 January 2018, which ranks it as the fourth most populous in Belgium. The current mayor of Ghent, Mathias De Clercq is from the liberal & democratic party Open VLD. The ten-day-long Ghent Festival (Gentse Feesten in Dutch) is held every year and attended by about 1–1.5 million visitors.

Source: Wikipedia

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Groningen (, also UK: , US: , Dutch: [ˈɣroːnɪŋə(n)] (listen); Gronings: Grun'n) is the main municipality as well as the capital city of the eponymous province in the Netherlands. It is the largest city in the north of the Netherlands and has 231,037 inhabitants (31 January 2019) on a total area of 180.21 km2 (69.58 sq mi), and land area of 168.93 km2 (65.22 sq mi) with a population density of 1,367 per km2 (3,540 per square mile).

It merged with Ten Boer and Haren municipalities on 1 January 2019. The Groningen-Assen metropolitan area has about half a million inhabitants. Groningen is an old city (more than 950 years) and was the regional power of the north of the Netherlands, a semi-independent city-state and member of the German Hanseatic League. Groningen is a university city, with students forming an estimated 25% of its total population.

Source: Wikipedia