Mogadishu vs Alexandria

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Mogadishu (, also US: ; Somali: Muqdisho [mʉqdɪʃɔ]; Arabic: مقديشو‎, romanized: Muqadīshū [muqaˈdiːʃuː]; Italian: Mogadiscio [moɡaˈdiʃʃo]), locally known as Xamar or Hamar, is the capital and most populous city of Somalia. The city has served as an important port connecting with traders all round the Indian Ocean for millennia and currently has a population of 2,425,000 residents. Mogadishu is the nearest foreign mainland city to Seychelles, at a distance of 835 mi (1,344 km) over the Indian Ocean. Mogadishu is located in the coastal Banadir region on the Indian Ocean, which unlike other Somali regions, is considered a municipality rather than a maamulgoboleed (federal state).Mogadishu has a long history, which ranges from the ancient period up until the present, serving as the capital of an influential Sultanate in the 9th century, which for centuries controlled the Indian Ocean gold trade, and eventually came under the Ajuran Empire in the 13th century, which was an important player in the medieval Silk Road maritime trade.

Mogadishu enjoyed the height of its prosperity during the 14th and 15th centuries and was during the early modern period considered the richest city on the East African coast, as well as the center of a thriving textile industry. In the 17th century, Mogadishu and parts of southern Somalia fell under the Hiraab Imamate and then came under the direct rule of the Somali Sultanate of the Geledi. The onset of Italian colonialism occurred in incremental stages, with Italian treaties in the 1880s followed by economic engagement between various Somali clans, including the Reer Mataan and the Shaansi (Cadcad) clans like reer Xamar and the Italian Benadir Company and then direct governance by the Italian government after 1906 and the British Military Administration of Somalia after World War Two and the UN Italian Trust Territory in the 1950s. This was followed by independence in 1960, the Hantiwadaag (socialist) era during Barre's presidency (1969-1991), a three-decade civil war afterward, and as of the late 2010s and 2020s a period of reconstruction.

Source: Wikipedia

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Alexandria ( or ; Arabic: الإسكندرية‎ al-ʾIskandariyya; Egyptian Arabic: اسكندرية‎ Eskendereyya; Coptic: ⲣⲁⲕⲟϯ Rakodī; Greek: Αλεξάνδρεια Alexandria) is the second-largest city in Egypt and a major economic centre. With a population of 5,200,000, Alexandria is the largest city on the Mediterranean - also called the Bride of the Mediterranean by locals - the sixth-largest city in the Arab world and the ninth-largest in Africa. The city extends about 40 km (25 mi) at the northern coast of Egypt along the Mediterranean Sea. Alexandria is a popular tourist destination, and also an important industrial centre because of its natural gas and oil pipelines from Suez. Alexandria was founded in c. 331 BC by Alexander the Great, king of Macedon and leader of the Greek League of Corinth, during his conquest of the Achaemenid Empire. An Egyptian village named Rhacotis existed at the location and grew into the Egyptian quarter of Alexandria. Alexandria grew rapidly to become an important centre of Hellenistic civilization and remained the capital of Ptolemaic Egypt and Roman and Byzantine Egypt for almost 1,000 years, until the Muslim conquest of Egypt in AD 641, when a new capital was founded at Fustat (later absorbed into Cairo).

Hellenistic Alexandria was best known for the Lighthouse of Alexandria (Pharos), one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World; its Great Library (the largest in the ancient world); and the Necropolis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages. Alexandria was the intellectual and cultural centre of the ancient Mediterranean world for much of the Hellenistic age and late antiquity. It was at one time the largest city in the ancient world before being eventually overtaken by Rome. The city was a major centre of early Christianity and was the centre of the Patriarchate of Alexandria, which was one of the major centres of Christianity in the Eastern Roman Empire. In the modern world, the Coptic Orthodox Church and the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria both lay claim to this ancient heritage. By the time of the Arab conquest of Egypt in 641 AD, the city had already been largely plundered and lost its significance before re-emerging in the modern era. From the late 18th century, Alexandria became a major centre of the international shipping industry and one of the most important trading centres in the world, both because it profited from the easy overland connection between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, and the lucrative trade in Egyptian cotton.

Source: Wikipedia