Helsinki vs Alexandria

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Helsinki ( HEL-sink-ee or (listen) hel-SINK-ee; Finnish: [ˈhelsiŋki] (listen); Swedish: Helsingfors, Finland Swedish: [helsiŋˈforsː] (listen); Latin: Helsingia) is the capital, primate and most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, It's the chair of the region of Uusimaa in southern Finland, and has a population of 656,229. The city's urban area has a population of 1,268,296, making it by far the most populous metropolitan area in Finland as well as the nation's most important center for politics, education, finance, culture, and research; while Tampere in the Pirkanmaa region, situated 179 kilometres (111 mi) to the north from Helsinki, is the second largest urban area in Finland. Helsinki is situated 80 kilometres (50 mi) north of Tallinn, Estonia, 400 kilometers (250 mi) east of Stockholm, Sweden, and 300 km (190 mi) west of Saint Petersburg, Russia. It has close historical ties with these 3 cities. Together with the cities of Espoo, Vantaa, and Kauniainen, and surrounding commuter cities, Helsinki creates the Greater Helsinki metropolitan area, which has a population of over 1.

5 million. Often considered to be Finland's only metropolis, it's the world's northernmost metro area with over one million individuals as well as the northernmost capital of an EU member state. After Stockholm and Oslo, Helsinki is the third largest municipality in the Nordic countries. Finnish and Swedish are both official languages. The city is served by the international Helsinki Airport, located in the neighboring city of Vantaa, with frequent service to many destinations in Europe and Asia. Helsinki was the World Design Capital for 2012, the venue for the 1952 Summer Olympics, and the host of the 52nd Eurovision Song Contest in 2007. Helsinki has among the world's highest urban standards of living. In 2011, the British magazine Monocle rated Helsinki the world's most liveable city in its liveable cities indicator. From the Economist Intelligence Unit's 2016 liveability survey, Helsinki was rated ninth among 140 cities.

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. Following the Arab conquest of Egypt in AD 641, the city was 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