Des Moines | |
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State | New Mexico |
Country | USA |
Capital | |
Population | 149 |
Des Moines ( (listen)) is the capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Iowa. It is also the county seat of Polk County. A small part of the city extends into Warren County. It was incorporated on September 22, 1851, as Fort Des Moines, which was shortened to "Des Moines" in 1857. It is located on, and named after, the Des Moines River, which likely was adapted from the early French name, Rivière des Moines, meaning "River of the Monks". The city's population was 214,237 as of the 2019 population estimate. The six-county metropolitan area is ranked 83rd in terms of population in the United States with 699,292 residents according to the 2019 estimate by the United States Census Bureau, and is the largest metropolitan area fully located within the state. A portion of the larger Omaha, Nebraska, metropolitan area extends into three counties of southwest Iowa.Des Moines is a major center of the US insurance industry and has a sizable financial services and publishing business base. The city was credited as the "number one spot for U.S. insurance companies" in a Business Wire article and named the third-largest "insurance capital" of the world.
Punta Arenas | |
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State | |
Country | |
Capital | |
Population | 130704 |
Punta Arenas (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈpunta aˈɾenas]; historically Sandy Point in English) is the capital city of Chile's southernmost region, Magallanes and Antartica Chilena. The city was officially renamed as Magallanes in 1927, but in 1938 it was changed back to "Punta Arenas". It is the largest city south of the 46th parallel south, and at the same time the most populous southernmost city in Chile and in the Americas, and due to its location, the coldest coastal city with more than 100,000 inhabitants in Latin America. It is also one of the most populous sites so far south in the world.
As of 1977 Punta Arenas has been one of only two free ports in Chile, the other one being Iquique, in the country's far north. (Punta Arenas itself is not a "free port": outside the city there is a "zona franca" where certain products can be imported into the country under a reduced-tax regimen.)
Located on the Brunswick Peninsula north of the Strait of Magellan, Punta Arenas was originally established by the Chilean government in 1848 as a tiny penal colony to assert sovereignty over the Strait.