Amman vs Bethlehem

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Amman (English:; Arabic: عَمّان‎ ʻammān pronounced [ʕamːaːn]) is the capital and largest city of Jordan and the country's economic, cultural and political centre. With a population of 4,007,526, Amman is the biggest city in the Levant area and the sixth-largest town in the Arab world.The earliest evidence of settlement in Amman is in a Neolithic site known as'Ain Ghazal, where some of the oldest human statues ever discovered dating to 7250 BC were uncovered. During the Iron Age, the city was known as Ammon, home to the Kingdom of the Ammonites. It was called Philadelphia during its Greek and Roman periods, and was finally called Amman during the Islamic period. For much of the middle and early Islamic periods (7th--14th centuries), it served as a centre for the Balqa district of Syria. Afterwards, Amman was a largely abandoned site before the late 19th century when Circassian immigrants were settled there by the Ottoman Empire in 1878. The first municipal council was established in 1909. Amman witnessed rapid growth after its designation as Transjordan's capital in 1921, and after several successive waves of refugees: Palestinians in 1948 and 1967; Iraqis in 1990 and 2003; and Syrians since 2011. It was originally built on seven hills but now spans over 19 hills combining 22 areas, which are administered by the Greater Amman Municipality headed by its mayor Yousef Shawarbeh.

Areas of Amman have gained their titles from either the hills (Jabal) or the valleys (Wadi) they occupy, such as Jabal Lweibdeh and Wadi Abdoun. East Amman is predominantly filled with historical sites that frequently host cultural activities, while West Amman is more modern and serves as the financial centre of the city.Approximately two million visitors arrived in Amman in 2014, which made it the 93rd most visited city in the world and the 5th most visited Arab city. Amman has a relatively fast growing market, and it is ranked as a Beta− worldwide city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. In addition, it was named among the Middle East and North Africa's finest cities based on economic, labour, environmental, and socio-cultural factors. The city is one of the most popular locations in the Arab world for multinational corporations to establish their regional offices, together with Doha and just behind Dubai. It is expected that in the next 10 years these three towns will capture the largest share of multinational corporation activity in the area.

Source: Wikipedia

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Bethlehem (; Arabic: بيت لحم‎ Bayt Laḥm, "House of Meat"; Hebrew: בֵּית לֶחֶם‎ Bet Leḥem, Hebrew pronunciation: [bet ˈleχem], "House of Bread"; Ancient Greek: Βηθλεέμ Greek pronunciation: [bɛːtʰle.ém]; Latin: Bethleem; initially named after Canaanite fertility god Lehem) is a city in the central West Bank, Palestine, about 10 km (6.2 miles) south of Jerusalem. Its population is approximately 25,000, and it is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate. The economy is primarily tourist-driven, peaking during the Christmas season, when Christians make pilgrimage to the Church of the Nativity. The important holy site of Rachel's Tomb is at the northern entrance of Bethlehem, though not freely accessible to the city's own inhabitants and in general Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank due to the Israeli West Bank barrier. The earliest known mention of Bethlehem was in the Amarna correspondence of 1350–1330 BCE when the town was inhabited by the Canaanites. The Hebrew Bible, which says that the city of Bethlehem was built up as a fortified city by Rehoboam, identifies it as the city David was from and where he was crowned as the king of Israel. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke identify Bethlehem as the birthplace of Jesus. Bethlehem was destroyed by the Emperor Hadrian during the second-century Bar Kokhba revolt; its rebuilding was promoted by Empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, who commissioned the building of its great Church of the Nativity in 327 CE.

The church was badly damaged by the Samaritans, who sacked it during a revolt in 529, but was rebuilt a century later by Emperor Justinian I. Bethlehem became part of Jund Filastin following the Muslim conquest in 637. Muslim rule continued in Bethlehem until its conquest in 1099 by a crusading army, who replaced the town's Greek Orthodox clergy with a Latin one. In the mid-13th century, the Mamluks demolished the city's walls, which were subsequently rebuilt under the Ottomans in the early 16th century. Control of Bethlehem passed from the Ottomans to the British at the end of World War I. Bethlehem came under Jordanian rule during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and was later captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. Since the 1995 Oslo Accords, Bethlehem has been administered by the Palestinian Authority.Following an influx of refugees as a result of Israeli advances in the 1967 war, Bethlehem has a Muslim majority, but is still home to a significant Palestinian Christian community. It is now encircled and encroached upon by dozens of Israeli settlements and the Israeli West Bank barrier, which separates both Muslim and Christian communities from their land and livelihoods, and sees a steady exodus from both communities.

Source: Wikipedia