Timișoara vs Athens

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Timișoara (UK: , US: , Romanian: [timiˈʃo̯ara] (listen); German: Temeswar [ˈtɛmɛʃvaːɐ̯], also Temeschburg or Temeschwar; Hungarian: Temesvár [ˈtɛmɛʃvaːr] (listen); Serbian: Темишвар; Turkish: Temeşvar) is the capital city of Timiș County, the third largest city in Romania and the main social, economic and cultural centre in western Romania. Nicknamed the Little Vienna or the City of Flowers, Timișoara is considered the informal capital city of the historical Banat. The country's third most populous city is the economic hub of the region, with 319,279 inhabitants as of the 2011 census. It is home to almost a half-million inhabitants in the metropolitan area, as well as ca. 50,000 students from over 50 countries.Today, Timișoara, like many other large cities in Romania, is a medical tourism service provider especially for dental care. It also offers excellent academic institutions, attracting thousands of international students annually, mainly at its medical school.

As a technology hub, the city has one of the most powerful IT sectors in Romania alongside Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Iași, and Brașov, becoming a popular tech destination according to Financial Times. In 2013 Timișoara had the fastest internet download speed in the world. Along with Oradea, Timișoara is part of the Art Nouveau European Route.It was the first city in the Habsburg Monarchy with street lighting (1760) and the first European city to be lit by electric street lamps in 1884. It opened the first public lending library with a reading room in the Habsburg Empire and built a municipal hospital 24 years before Vienna. Also, it published the first German newspaper in Southeast Europe (Temeswarer Nachrichten). It has been an important centre for music in Europe since the 19th century. The Romanian Revolution began in Timișoara.The city will be the next European Capital of Culture in 2023.

Source: Wikipedia

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Athens ( ATH-inz; Greek: Αθήνα, romanized: Athína [aˈθina] (listen); Ancient Greek: Ἀθῆναι, romanized: Athênai (pl.) [atʰɛ̂ːnai̯]) is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning over 3,400 years and its earliest human presence started somewhere between the 11th and 7th millennium BC.Classical Athens was a powerful city-state. A center for the arts, learning and philosophy, home of Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum, it is widely referred to as the cradle of Western civilization and the birthplace of democracy, largely because of its cultural and political impact on the European continent, and in particular the Romans. In modern times, Athens is a large cosmopolitan metropolis and central to economic, financial, industrial, maritime, political and cultural life in Greece. Athens is a Beta global city according to the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, and is one of the biggest economic centers in southeastern Europe. It has a large financial sector, and its port Piraeus is both the largest passenger port in Europe, and the second largest in the world.The Municipality of Athens (also City of Athens), which actually constitutes a small administrative unit of the entire city, had a population of 664,046 (in 2011) within its official limits, and a land area of 38.96 km2 (15.04 sq mi). The Athens Urban Area (Greater Athens and Greater Piraeus) extends beyond its administrative municipal city limits, with a population of 3,090,508 (in 2011) over an area of 412 km2 (159 sq mi). According to Eurostat in 2011, the functional urban area (FUA) of Athens was the 9th most populous FUA in the European Union (the 6th most populous capital city of the EU), with a population of 3.

8 million people. Athens is also the southernmost capital on the European mainland and the warmest major city in Europe. The heritage of the classical era is still evident in the city, represented by ancient monuments and works of art, the most famous of all being the Parthenon, considered a key landmark of early Western civilization. The city also retains Roman and Byzantine monuments, as well as a smaller number of Ottoman monuments, while its historical urban core features elements of continuity through its millennia of history. Athens is home to two UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the Acropolis of Athens and the medieval Daphni Monastery. Landmarks of the modern era, dating back to the establishment of Athens as the capital of the independent Greek state in 1834, include the Hellenic Parliament and the so-called "architectural trilogy of Athens", consisting of the National Library of Greece, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and the Academy of Athens. Athens is also home to several museums and cultural institutions, such as the National Archeological Museum, featuring the world's largest collection of ancient Greek antiquities, the Acropolis Museum, the Museum of Cycladic Art, the Benaki Museum and the Byzantine and Christian Museum. Athens was the host city of the first modern-day Olympic Games in 1896, and 108 years later it hosted the 2004 Summer Olympics, making it one of the few cities to have hosted the Olympics more than once.

Source: Wikipedia