Grenoble vs Juneau

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Grenoble ( grə-NOH-bəl, French: [ɡʁənɔbl] (listen); Francoprovençal: Grenoblo) is the prefecture and largest city of the Isère department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of Southeastern France. It lies at the foot of the French Alps where the river Drac joins the Isère. A significant European scientific centre, the city advertises itself as the "Capital of the Alps", due to its size and its proximity to the mountains. The population of the commune of Grenoble was 158,180 at the 2016 census, while the population of the Grenoble metropolitan area (French: aire urbaine de Grenoble or "agglomération grenobloise") was 687,985 which makes it the largest metropolis in the Alps, ahead of Innsbruck and Bolzano. The residents of the city are called "Grenoblois". The many suburb communes that make up the rest of the metropolitan area include three with populations exceeding 20,000: Saint-Martin-d'Hères, Échirolles, Fontaine and Voiron.Grenoble's history goes back over 2,000 years, to a time when it was a small Gallic village.

It became the capital of the Dauphiné in the 11th century. This status, consolidated by the annexation to France, allowed it to develop its economy. Grenoble then became a parliamentary and military city, close to the border with Savoy. Industrial development increased the prominence of Grenoble through several periods of economic expansion over the last three centuries. This started with a booming glove industry in the 18th and 19th centuries, continued with the development of a strong hydropower industry in the late 19th to early 20th centuries and ended with a post-World War II economic boom symbolized by the holding of the X Olympic Winter Games in 1968. The city has grown to be one of Europe's most important research, technology and innovation centres, with one in five inhabitants working directly in these fields. Grenoble is classified as a global city with the ranking of "sufficiency" by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. The city will hold the title of European Green Capital in 2022.

Source: Wikipedia

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The City and Borough of Juneau ( JOO-noh; Tlingit: Dzánti K'ihéeni [ˈtsántʰì kʼìˈhíːnì]; Russian: Джуно, Dzhuno), commonly known as Juneau, is the capital city of Alaska. Located in the Gastineau Channel and the Alaskan panhandle, it is a unified municipality and the second-largest city in the United States by area. Juneau was named the capital of Alaska in 1906, when the government of what was then the District of Alaska was moved from Sitka as dictated by the U.S. Congress in 1900. The municipality unified on July 1, 1970, when the city of Juneau merged with the city of Douglas and the surrounding Greater Juneau Borough to form the current municipality, which is larger by area than both Rhode Island and Delaware. Downtown Juneau (58°18′00″N 134°24′58″W) is nestled at the base of Mount Juneau and across the channel from Douglas Island. As of the 2010 census, the City and Borough had a population of 31,276. In 2019, the population estimate from the United States Census Bureau was 31,974, making it the second-most populous city in Alaska after Anchorage. Juneau experiences a daily influx of roughly 6,000 people from visiting cruise ships between the months of May and September. The city is named after a gold prospector from Quebec, Joe Juneau, though the place was for a time called Rockwell and then Harrisburg (after Juneau's co-prospector, Richard Harris). The Tlingit name of the town is Dzántik'i Héeni ("Base of the Flounder's River," dzánti 'flounder,' –kʼi 'base,' héen 'river'), and Auke Bay just north of Juneau proper is called Áak'w ("Little lake," áa 'lake,' -kʼ 'diminutive') in Tlingit.

The Taku River, just south of Juneau, was named after the cold t'aakh wind, which occasionally blows down from the mountains. Juneau is unique among U.S. capitals in that there are no roads connecting the city to the rest of the state. Honolulu, Hawaii is the only other state capital not connected by road to the rest of North America. The absence of a road network is due to the extremely rugged terrain surrounding the city. This in turn makes Juneau a de facto island city in terms of transportation, since all goods coming in and out must go by plane or boat, in spite of the city's being on the Alaskan mainland. Downtown Juneau sits at sea level, with tides averaging 16 feet (5 m), below steep mountains about 3,500 feet (1,100 m) to 4,000 feet (1,200 m) high. Atop these mountains is the Juneau Icefield, a large ice mass from which about 30 glaciers flow; two of these, the Mendenhall Glacier and the Lemon Creek Glacier, are visible from the local road system. The Mendenhall glacier has been gradually retreating; its front face is declining in width and height. The Alaska State Capitol in downtown Juneau was built as the Federal and Territorial Building in 1931. Prior to statehood, it housed federal government offices, the federal courthouse and a post office. It also housed the territorial legislature and many other territorial offices, including that of the governor. Today, Juneau remains the home of the state legislature and the offices of the governor and lieutenant governor. Some other executive branch offices have moved elsewhere in the state.

Source: Wikipedia