Belgrade vs Limoges

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Belgrade ( BEL-grayd; Serbian: Београд, romanized: Beograd, lit. 'White City', pronounced [beǒɡrad] (listen); names in other languages) is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It's located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers as well as the crossroads of the Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. Nearly 1.7 million people live within the administrative limits of the Town of Belgrade, a quarter of the total population of Serbia.Belgrade is among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Europe and the World. One of the most important prehistoric cultures of Europe, the Vinča culture, evolved within the Belgrade area in the 6th millennium BC. In antiquity, Thraco-Dacians inhabited the region and, after 279 BC, Celts settled the town, naming it Singidūn. It was conquered by the Romans under the reign of Augustus and given Roman town rights in the mid-2nd century. It had been settled by the Slavs in the 520s, and changed hands several times between the Byzantine Empire, the Frankish Empire, the Bulgarian Empire, and the Kingdom of Hungary before it became the seat of the Serbian king Stefan Dragutin in 1284. Belgrade served as capital of the Serbian Despotate during the reign of Stefan Lazarević, and then his successor Đurađ Branković returned into the Hungarian king in 1427. Noon bells in support of the Hungarian army against the Ottoman Empire during the siege in 1456 have remained a widespread church heritage to this day. In 1521, Belgrade was conquered by the Ottomans and became the chair of the Sanjak of Smederevo. It often passed from Ottoman to Habsburg rule, which saw the destruction of most of the city during the Austro-Ottoman wars.

In the period after the Serbian Revolution, Belgrade was named the capital of Serbia in 1841. Northern Belgrade stayed the southernmost Habsburg post until 1918, when it was attached to the city, because of former Austro-Hungarian lands becoming the role of the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes after World War I. Belgrade was the capital of Yugoslavia from its creation in 1918 to its dissolution in 2006. In a fatally strategic position, the city was battled over in 115 wars and razed 44 times, being bombed five times and surrounded many times.Being Serbia's primate city, Belgrade has special administrative status within Serbia. It's the seat of the central authorities, administrative bodies, and government ministries, as well as home of almost all the largest Serbian companies, media, and scientific associations. Belgrade is categorized as a Beta-Global City. The town is home to the Clinical Centre of Serbia, one of the hospital complexes with the biggest capacity in the world, the Church of Saint Sava, one of the biggest Orthodox church buildings, and the Štark Arena, one of those indoor arenas with the biggest capacity in Europe. Belgrade hosted major international events like the Danube River Conference of 1948, the first Non-Aligned Movement Summit (1961), the first major gathering of the OSCE (1977--1978), Eurovision Song Contest (2008), as well as sports events like the first FINA World Aquatics Championships (1973), UEFA Euro (1976), Summer Universiade (2009) and EuroBasket three-times (1961, 1975, 2005).

Source: Wikipedia

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Limoges (, also US: , French: [limɔʒ] (listen); Occitan: Lemòtges, locally Limòtges [liˈmɔdzes]) is a city and commune, the capital of the Haute-Vienne department and was the administrative capital of the former Limousin region in west-central France. Situated on the first western foothills of the Massif Central, Limoges is crossed by the Vienne River, of which it was originally the first ford crossing point. The second most populated town in the New Aquitaine region after Bordeaux, a university town, an administrative centre and intermediate services with all the facilities of a regional metropolis, its has an urban area of 283,557 inhabitants in 2016, making it the sixth in South-West France and the 38th in the whole country.The inhabitants of the city are called the Limougeauds. Founded around 10 BC under the name of Augustoritum, it became an important Gallo-Roman city. In the Middle Ages Limoges becomes a large city, strongly marked by the cultural influence of the Abbey of Saint-Martial, within the Duchy of Aquitaine, whose dukes are invested and crowned in this city. From the 12th century onwards, its enamels were exported throughout the Christian world. In 1765, during the industrial revolution, the discovery of a deposit of kaolin in the Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche region enabled the development of the Limoges porcelain industry, which would make Limoges world-famous.

Sometimes nicknamed "the red city" or "the Rome of socialism" because of its tradition of voting on the left and the workers' events it experienced from the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century. Since the 1990s, the city has also been associated with its basketball club, Limoges CSP, which has won several French championships and the European championship in 1993. Because of its heritage policy, it has held the label "City of Art and History" since 2008. A city with a tradition of butchery, home to one of the world leaders in electrical equipment for the building industry, it is also well positioned in the luxury goods industry. Known and recognised as the "capital of the arts of fire" because of the ever-present presence of the great porcelain houses, its art workshops working with enamel or stained glass. This specificity has led it to join the UNESCO Creative Cities Network in 2017 in the thematic category "Crafts and Popular Arts".

Source: Wikipedia