Bishkek vs Ghent

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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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Ghent ( GHENT; Dutch: Gent, [ɣɛnt] (listen); French: Gand, [ɡɑ̃] (listen); traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded in size only by Brussels and Antwerp. It is a port and university city. The city originally started as a settlement at the confluence of the Rivers Scheldt and Leie and in the Late Middle Ages became one of the largest and richest cities of northern Europe, with some 50,000 people in 1300. The municipality comprises the city of Ghent proper and the surrounding suburbs of Afsnee, Desteldonk, Drongen, Gentbrugge, Ledeberg, Mariakerke, Mendonk, Oostakker, Sint-Amandsberg, Sint-Denijs-Westrem, Sint-Kruis-Winkel, Wondelgem and Zwijnaarde.

With 262,219 inhabitants at the beginning of 2019, Ghent is Belgium's second largest municipality by number of inhabitants. The metropolitan area, including the outer commuter zone, covers an area of 1,205 km2 (465 sq mi) and has a total population of 560,522 as of 1 January 2018, which ranks it as the fourth most populous in Belgium. The current mayor of Ghent, Mathias De Clercq is from the liberal & democratic party Open VLD. The ten-day-long Ghent Festival (Gentse Feesten in Dutch) is held every year and attended by about 1–1.5 million visitors.

Source: Wikipedia