Novara vs Damascus

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Novara (Italian pronunciation: [noˈvaːra] (listen); Nuàra [nuˈɑːra] in the local Lombard dialect) is the capital city of the province of Novara in the Piedmont region in northwest Italy, to the west of Milan. With 104,268 inhabitants (as of 30 April 2019), it is the second most populous city in Piedmont after Turin.

It is an important crossroads for commercial traffic along the routes from Milan to Turin and from Genoa to Switzerland. Novara lies between the rivers Agogna and Terdoppio in northeastern Piedmont, 50 kilometres (31 mi) from Milan and 95 kilometres (59 mi) from Turin.

Source: Wikipedia

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Damascus ( də-MASS-kəs; Arabic: دِمَشْق‎, romanized: Dimašq [diˈmaʃq], Syrian Arabic: [dɪˈmaʃʔ] Syriac : ܕܰܪܡܣܘܩ) is the capital of Syria; it became the country's largest city in the early 2010s, following the decline in population of Aleppo during the battle for the city. It is colloquially known in Syria as aš-Šām (الشَّام) and titled the "City of Jasmine" (مَدِينَة الْيَاسْمِين Madīnat al-Yāsmīn). Damascus is a major cultural center of the Levant and the Arab world. The city 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 ft) above sea level, Damascus experiences a dry climate because of the rain shadow effect.

The Barada River flows through Damascus. Damascus is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. First settled in the second millennium BC, it was chosen as the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate from 661 to 750. After the victory of the Abbasid dynasty, the seat of Islamic power was moved to Baghdad. Damascus saw its importance decline throughout the Abbasid era, only to regain significant importance in the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods. Today, it is the seat of the central government and all of the government ministries. As of September 2019, eight years into the ongoing Syrian Civil War, Damascus was named the least livable city in the Global Liveability Ranking.

Source: Wikipedia