Islamabad vs Barletta

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Islamabad (; Urdu: اسلام آباد, romanized: Islāmābād) is the capital city of Pakistan, and is administered within the Islamabad Capital Territory. Islamabad is the ninth largest city in Pakistan, while the bigger Islamabad--Rawalpindi metropolitan area is the country's fourth largest with a population of about 3.1 million. Constructed as a planned town in the 1960s to replace Karachi as Pakistan's capital, Islamabad is noted for its high standards of living, safety, and abundant greenery.The town's master plan, designed by Greek architect Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis, divides the city into eight zones, including administrative, diplomatic enclave, residential areas, educational industries, industrial industries, commercial areas, and green and rural areas that are administered by the Islamabad Metropolitan Corporation, supported by the Capital Development Authority.

The city is well known for the presence of several parks and forests, including the Margalla Hills National Park and the Shakarparian. The town is home to several landmarks, with the most notable one being the Faisal Mosque − the biggest mosque in South Asia and also the fourth largest in the world. Other landmarks include the Pakistan National Monument and Democracy Square.Islamabad is a Gamma + town as rated by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. The town has the highest cost of living in Pakistan, and its population is dominated by middle and upper middle class citizens.The town is home to twenty schools, including Bahria University, Quaid-e-Azam University, PIEAS, COMSATS University and NUST. The city is among the safest in Pakistan, and has an expansive RFID-enabled surveillance system with almost 2000 CCTV cameras.

Source: Wikipedia

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Barletta (Italian pronunciation: [barˈletta] (listen)) is a city, comune of Apulia, in south eastern Italy. Barletta is the capoluogo, together with Andria and Trani, of the Province of Barletta-Andria-Trani. It has a population of around 94.700 citizens. The city's territory belongs to the Valle dell'Ofanto, indeed, the Ofanto river crosses the countryside and forms the border between the territory of Barletta and that of Margherita di Savoia. The mouth of the river is in the territory of Barletta. The area of Barletta also includes part of the battlefield of Cannae. This is a very important archeological site, remembered for the major battle in 216 B.C. between the Romans and the Carthaginians, won by Hannibal. The site has been recognisied as Città d'Arte (city of art) of Apulia in the 2005 for the beautiful architecture. Cannae flourished in the Roman period and then after a series of debilitating Saracen attacks, was finally destroyed by the Normans and then abandoned in the early Middle Ages. Barletta is home to the Colossus of Barletta, a bronze statue, representing a Roman Emperor (perhaps Theodosius II). This statue, called "Eraclio" by the inhabitants of Barletta, is about 4 metres (13 feet) tall, and remains the biggest statue that survives from the late Roman Empire (i.e. the Roman Empire after Constantine). According to a local folk story, Eraclio saved the city from a Saracen attack. Seeing the Saracen ships approaching Barletta's coast, Eraclio waited for them on the sea shore.

Here Eraclio acted as if he was crying so the Saracens asked him why he was sad and Eraclio answered that he was sad because he was the smallest among Barletta's inhabitants and so everybody made fun of him. The Saracens thought that Barletta's inhabitants were all giants so left the coast, fearing to face them. In 1503 Barletta was the location of the disfida di Barletta ("Joust of Barletta"), a battle during which 13 Italian knights commanded by Ettore Fieramosca challenged and defeated an equal number of French knights who were at the time prisoners of war, in a joust held near Andria. This episode was documented in 1833 by Massimo d'Azeglio, who wrote the novel "Ettore Fieramosca o la Disfida di Barletta". In the book the author regards this episode as one of the earliest manifestations of Italian national pride. The city at the time was fairly loosely besieged by French forces, and occupied by a Spanish army under the command of Gonzalo de Cordoba the 'Gran Capitan'. Barletta has one gold medal for military valour and another one for civil valour, for its resistance to an incursion of German Fallschirmjäger who destroyed the port in order to prevent its falling intact into the hands of the advancing British Eighth Army during World War II. Barletta also has the tragic reputation of being the location where the last 2 Protestants were burned alive at the stake in 1866 as a result of the Roman Inquisition which began in Italy in 1542.

Source: Wikipedia