Bytom vs Alexandria

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Bytom (Polish pronunciation: [ˈbɨtɔm] (listen); Silesian: Bytōm, Bytōń, German: Beuthen O.S.) is a city with powiat rights in southern Poland, in Silesia, in centre of Metropolitan Association of Upper Silesia and Dąbrowa Basin. It is one of the oldest cities in the Upper Silesia, and the former seat of the Piast dukes of the Duchy of Bytom. Until 1532, it was in the hands of the Silesian Piasts, then it belonged to the Hohenzollern dynasty. After 1623 it was a state country in the hands of the Donnersmarck family. From 1742 to 1945 the town was within the borders of Prussia and Germany, and played an important role as an economic and administrative centre of the local industrial region. Until the outbreak of World War II, it was the main centre of national, social, cultural and publishing organisations fighting to preserve Polish identity in Upper Silesia.

During Kristallnacht in 1938, Nazi Germans burned down the Bytom Synagogue. In 1942, the Beuthen Jewish community was liquidated and its members were the first transport to be sent to Auschwitz concentration camp. After the war, decades of the Polish People's Republic were characterized by a constant emphasis on the development of heavy industry, which deeply polluted and degraded Bytom. After 1989, the city experienced a socio-economic decline. The city is blighted with derelict, dilapidated buildings which are ubiquitous. The population has been in rapid decline since 1999 leading to a number of locals describing the city as a ghost town. Poverty remains rife in Bytom. However, it is an important place in the cultural, entertainment, and industrial map of the region.

Source: Wikipedia

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Alexandria ( or ; Arabic: الإسكندرية‎ al-ʾIskandariyya; Egyptian Arabic: اسكندرية‎ Eskendereyya; Coptic: ⲣⲁⲕⲟϯ Rakodī; Greek: Αλεξάνδρεια Alexandria) is the second-largest city in Egypt and a major economic centre. With a population of 5,200,000, Alexandria is the largest city on the Mediterranean - also called the Bride of the Mediterranean by locals - the sixth-largest city in the Arab world and the ninth-largest in Africa. The city extends about 40 km (25 mi) at the northern coast of Egypt along the Mediterranean Sea. Alexandria is a popular tourist destination, and also an important industrial centre because of its natural gas and oil pipelines from Suez. Alexandria was founded in c. 331 BC by Alexander the Great, king of Macedon and leader of the Greek League of Corinth, during his conquest of the Achaemenid Empire. An Egyptian village named Rhacotis existed at the location and grew into the Egyptian quarter of Alexandria. Alexandria grew rapidly to become an important centre of Hellenistic civilization and remained the capital of Ptolemaic Egypt and Roman and Byzantine Egypt for almost 1,000 years, until the Muslim conquest of Egypt in AD 641, when a new capital was founded at Fustat (later absorbed into Cairo).

Hellenistic Alexandria was best known for the Lighthouse of Alexandria (Pharos), one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World; its Great Library (the largest in the ancient world); and the Necropolis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages. Alexandria was the intellectual and cultural centre of the ancient Mediterranean world for much of the Hellenistic age and late antiquity. It was at one time the largest city in the ancient world before being eventually overtaken by Rome. The city was a major centre of early Christianity and was the centre of the Patriarchate of Alexandria, which was one of the major centres of Christianity in the Eastern Roman Empire. In the modern world, the Coptic Orthodox Church and the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria both lay claim to this ancient heritage. By the time of the Arab conquest of Egypt in 641 AD, the city had already been largely plundered and lost its significance before re-emerging in the modern era. From the late 18th century, Alexandria became a major centre of the international shipping industry and one of the most important trading centres in the world, both because it profited from the easy overland connection between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, and the lucrative trade in Egyptian cotton.

Source: Wikipedia