Alexandria | |
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State | Virginia |
Country | United States of America |
Capital | |
Population | 160035 |
Postcode | 22314 |
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).
Banská Bystrica | |
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State | Region of Banská Bystrica |
Country | Slovakia |
Capital | |
Population | 80466 |
Postcode | 97404 |
Banská Bystrica (Slovak pronunciation: [ˈbanskaː ˈbistritsa] (listen), also known by other alternative names) is a city in central Slovakia located on the Hron River in a long and wide valley encircled by the mountain chains of the Low Tatras, the Veľká Fatra, and the Kremnica Mountains. With 76 000 inhabitants, Banská Bystrica is the sixth most populous municipality in Slovakia. The present town was founded by German settlers, however it was built upon a former Slavic settlement. It obtained the municipal privileges of a free royal town of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1255.