Amman vs Jerusalem

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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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Jerusalem (; Hebrew: יְרוּשָׁלַיִם‎ Yerushaláyim; Arabic: القُدس‎ al-Quds or Bayt al-Maqdis, also spelled Baitul Muqaddas) is a Town in the Middle East, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea.

It is among the oldest cities in the world, and is considered holy to the three major Abrahamic religions--Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority claim Jerusalem as their capital, as Israel maintains its primary governmental institutions there and the State of Palestine ultimately foresees it as its seat of power; however, neither claim is broadly recognized internationally.Throughout its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed at least two, besieged 23 times, captured and recaptured 44 times, and attacked 52 times. The component of Jerusalem known as the City of David shows first signs of settlement in the 4th millennium BCE, in the shape of encampments of nomadic shepherds. In the Canaanite period (14th century BCE), Jerusalem was named as Urusalim on ancient Egyptian tablets, probably meaning"City of Shalem" following a Canaanite deity. During the Israelite period, significant construction activity in Jerusalem began in the 9th century BCE (Iron Age II), and in the 8th century the city developed into the religious and administrative centre of the Kingdom of Judah. In 1538, the city walls were rebuilt for a last time around Jerusalem under Suleiman the Magnificent, when it was part of the Ottoman Empire. Today those walls specify the Old City, which has been traditionally divided into four-quarters--known since the early 19th century as the Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Quarters. The Old City became a World Heritage Site in 1981, and is on the List of World Heritage in Danger. Since 1860 Jerusalem has grown far beyond the Old City's boundaries. In 2015, Jerusalem had a population of some 850,000 residents, including roughly 200,000 secular Jewish Israelis, 350,000 Haredi Jews and 300,000 Palestinians. In 2016, the population was 882,700, of which Jews included 536,600 (60.8percent ), Muslims 319,800 (36.2percent ), Christians 15,800 (1.8percent ), and 10,300 unclassified (1.2percent ).According to the Bible, King David conquered the city from the Jebusites and established it as the capital of the united kingdom of Israel, and his son, King Solomon, commissioned the construction of the First Temple.



Modern scholars argue that Jews branched out of the Canaanite peoples and culture through the creation of a distinct monolatrous -- and later monotheistic -- religion centered on El/Yahweh, These foundational events, straddling the dawn of the 1st millennium BCE, assumed central symbolic significance for the Jewish men and women. The sobriquet of holy city (עיר הקודש, transliterated'ir haqodesh) was attached to Jerusalem in post-exilic times. The holiness of Jerusalem in Christianity, conserved from the Septuagint which Christians adopted as their own authority, was bolstered by the New Testament account of Jesus's crucifixion there. In Sunni Islam, Jerusalem is the third-holiest city, after Mecca and Medina. In Islamic tradition, in 610 CE it became the first qibla, the focal point for Muslim prayer (salat), and Muhammad made his Night Journey there ten years later, ascending to heaven where he speaks to God, according to the Quran. Because of this, despite having an area of only 0.9 square kilometres (0.35 sq mi), the Old City is home to many sites of seminal religious significance, among them the Temple Mount with its Western Wall, Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Outside the Old City stands the Garden Tomb. Today, the status of Jerusalem is still one of the core issues in the Israeli--Palestinian conflict. During the 1948 Arab--Israeli War, West Jerusalem was among the areas captured and later annexed by Israel while East Jerusalem, including the Old City, was captured and later annexed by Jordan. Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1967 Six-Day War and subsequently annexed it into Jerusalem, together with additional neighboring land. Among Israel's Basic Laws, the 1980 Jerusalem Law, refers to Jerusalem as the Nation's undivided capital. All branches of the Israeli authorities are located in Jerusalem, including the Knesset (Israel's parliament), the residences of the Prime Minister (Beit Aghion) and President (Beit HaNassi), and the Supreme Court. As the international community rejects the annexation as illegal and treats East Jerusalem as Palestinian territory occupied by Israel, Israel's claim of sovereignty over East Jerusalem is poorer than its claim over West Jerusalem.

Source: Wikipedia