Barbacena vs Essen

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Barbacena is a municipality in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. As of 2020, the municipality had 138,204 inhabitants. The total area of the municipality is 788 km2 (304 sq mi). It is in the foothills of the Serra da Mantiqueira south of the state capital Belo Horizonte at an elevation of 1,136 m (3,727 ft), making it one of the ten highest cities in Brazil. Located on the important BR-040 highway (also called Rodovia JK), which links Brasília to Rio de Janeiro, it is 165 km (103 mi) from the state capital and 97 km (60 mi) Juiz de Fora. Barbacena has a humid tropical climate with cool summers due to the elevation. Summer averages are 24 °C (75 °F) and winter averages 13 °C (55 °F). The cool climate and abundant rainfall have made Barbacena a center for flower production — the city is the biggest producer of flowers in Minas Gerais, and is nicknamed "City of Roses". Cattle raising and the dairy industry are quite developed and the city is a big producer of milk products; there are also several small textile factories.

Barbacena is also the home of the Preparatory School of Air Cadets (the sixteenth best high school of the country, which belongs to the Brazilian Air Force) and of a Medical School, Faculdade de Medicina de Barbacena (Faculty of Medicine of Barbacena). The city is also famous for the Hospital Colônia de Barbacena, a mental hospital founded in 1903, which was known for its abusive treatment of patients. According to sources, 70% of the patients did not have mental illness, and allegedly 60,000 people died in the hospital. It ceased operations in the mid-1980s. It has been compared to a Nazi concentration camp.Barbacena was the birthplace of the human rights activist and lawyer Heráclito Fontoura Sobral Pinto. Barbacena was a station on the Estrada de Ferro Oeste de Minas, a narrow gauge railway.

Source: Wikipedia

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Essen (German pronunciation: [ˈɛsn̩] (listen); Latin: Assindia) is the central and second largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of 583,109 makes it the ninth largest city of Germany, as well as the fourth largest city of the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. On the Ruhr and Emscher rivers, Essen geographically is part of the Rhineland and the larger Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region. The Ruhrdeutsch regiolect spoken in the region has strong influences of both Low German (Westphalian) and Low Franconian (East Bergish). Essen is seat to several of the region's authorities, as well as to eight of the 100 largest publicly held German corporations by revenue, including two DAX corporations. Essen is often considered the energy capital of Germany with E.ON and RWE, Germany's largest energy providers, both headquartered in the city. Essen is also known for its impact on the arts through the respected Folkwang University of the Arts, its Zollverein School of Management and Design, and the Red Dot industrial product design award. In early 2003, the universities of Essen and the nearby city of Duisburg (both established in 1972) were merged into the University of Duisburg-Essen with campuses in both cities and a university hospital in Essen. In 1958, Essen was chosen to serve as the seat to a Roman Catholic diocese (often referred to as Ruhrbistum or diocese of the Ruhr).

Founded around 845, Essen remained a small town within the sphere of influence of an important ecclesiastical principality (Essen Abbey) until the onset of industrialization. The city then — especially through the Krupp family iron works — became one of Germany's most important coal and steel centers. Essen, until the 1970s, attracted workers from all over the country; it was the 5th-largest city in Germany between 1929 and 1988, peaking at over 730,000 inhabitants in 1962. Following the region-wide decline of heavy industries in the last decades of the 20th century, the city has seen the development of a strong tertiary sector of the economy. The most notable witness of this Strukturwandel (structural change) is the Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex, which has once been the largest of its kind in Europe. Ultimately closed in 1993, both the coking plant and the mine have been inscribed in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites since 2001. Notable accomplishments of the city in recent years include the title of European Capital of Culture on behalf of the whole Ruhr area in 2010 and the selection as the European Green Capital for 2017.

Source: Wikipedia