Bishkek vs Beirut

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Bishkek (Kyrgyz: Бишкек, Bişkek, بىشکەک, IPA: [biʃˈkek], Kazakh: Бішкек), formerly Pishpek and Frunze (Russian: Фрунзе), is the capital and largest city of Kyrgyzstan (Kyrgyz Republic). Bishkek is also the administrative centre of the Chuy Region. The state surrounds the city, even though the city itself is not part of the state, but instead a province-level unit of Kyrgyzstan. It's also near the Kazakhstan-Kyrgyzstan border. In 1825, the Khanate of Kokand established the fortress of"Pishpek" to restrain local caravan routes and also to collect tribute from Kyrgyz tribes. On 4 September 1860, with the approval of the Kyrgyz, Russian forces led by Colonel Apollon Zimmermann destroyed the fortress. In 1868, a Russian settlement was established on the website of the fortress under its original title,"Pishpek". It lay within the General Governorship of Russian Turkestan and its Semirechye Oblast. In 1925, the Kara-Kirghiz Autonomous Oblast was established in Russian Turkestan, encouraging Pishpek to its own capital. In 1926, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union renamed the city as Frunze, after the Bolshevik military leader Mikhail Frunze (1885--1925), who was born there.

In 1936, the city of Frunze became the capital of the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic, during the closing stages of the national delimitation in the Soviet Union. In 1991, the Kyrgyz parliament changed the capital's title to"Bishkek". Bishkek is located at an altitude of about 800 metres (2,600 ft), just off the northern fringe of the Kyrgyz Ala-Too Range, an expansion of the Tian Shan mountain range. These mountains rise to a height of 4,895 metres (16,060 ft). North of the city, a fertile and gently undulating steppe extends far north into neighbouring Kazakhstan. The Chui River drains the majority of the region. Bishkek is connected to the Turkestan--Siberia Railway by a spur line. Bishkek is a city of wide boulevards and marble-faced public buildings together with numerous Soviet-style apartment blocks surrounding interior courtyards. Additionally, there are thousands of smaller privately built houses, mostly away from the city centre. Streets follow a grid pattern, with most flanked on both sides by narrow irrigation channels, watering innumerable trees to provide shade in the hot summers.

Source: Wikipedia

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Beirut ( bay-ROOT; Arabic: بيروت‎, romanized: Bayrūt; French: Beyrouth, pronounced [bɛʁut]) is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. As of 2007 it had an estimated population of slightly more than 1 million to 2.2 million as part of Greater Beirut, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region and the fifteenth-largest in the Arab world. On a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coast, Beirut is an important regional seaport. It is one of the oldest cities in the world, having been inhabited for more than 5,000 years. The first historical mention of Beirut is found in the Amarna letters from the New Kingdom of Egypt, which date to the 15th century BC.

Beirut is Lebanon's seat of government and plays a central role in the Lebanese economy, with most banks and corporations based in its Central District, Badaro, Rue Verdun, Hamra, Ryad el Soleh street, and Achrafieh. Following the destructive Lebanese Civil War, Beirut's cultural landscape underwent major reconstruction. Identified and graded for accountancy, advertising, banking, finance and law, Beirut is ranked as a Beta + World City by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network.

Source: Wikipedia