Lille vs Buzău

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Lille ( LEEL; French: [lil] (listen); Dutch: Rijsel [ˈrɛisəl]; Picard: Lile; West Flemish: Rysel) is a city at the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the Deûle River, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France region, the prefecture of the Nord department, and the main city of the Métropole Européenne de Lille. As of 2017, Lille had a population of 232,787 within its administrative limits, and Lille is the first city of the Métropole Européenne de Lille with a population of 1,146,320, making it the fourth-largest urban area in France after Paris, Lyon, and Marseille. More broadly, it belongs to a vast conurbation formed with the Belgian cities of Mouscron, Kortrijk, Tournai and Menin, which gave birth in January 2008 to the Eurometropole Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai, the first European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC), which has more than 2.1 million inhabitants. Nicknamed in France the "Capital of Flanders", Lille and its surroundings belong to the historical region of Romance Flanders, a former territory of the county of Flanders that is not part of the linguistic area of West Flanders. A garrison town (as evidenced by its Citadel), Lille has had an eventful history from the Middle Ages to the French Revolution. Very often besieged during its history, it belonged successively to the Kingdom of France, the Burgundian State, the Holy Roman Empire of Germany and the Spanish Netherlands before being definitively attached to the France of Louis XIV following the War of Spanish Succession along with the entire territory making up the historic province of French Flanders. Lille was still under siege in 1792 during the Franco-Austrian War, in 1914 and 1940.

It was severely tested by the two world wars of the 20th century during which it was occupied and suffered destruction. A merchant city since its origins and a manufacturing city since the 16th century, the industrial revolution made it a great industrial capital, mainly around the textile and mechanical industries. Their decline, from the 1960s onwards, led to a long period of crisis and it was not until the 1990s that the conversion to the tertiary sector and the rehabilitation of the disaster-stricken districts gave the city a different face. Today, the historic center, Old Lille, is characterized by its 17th century red brick town houses, its paved pedestrian streets and its central Grand'Place. The belfry is one of the 23 belfries in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Somme regions that were classified as UNESCO World Heritage Sites in July 2005. The construction of the new Euralille business district in 1988 (now the third largest in France) and the arrival of the TGV and then the Eurostar in 1994 put Lille at the heart of the major European capitals. The development of its international airport, annual events such as the Braderie de Lille in early september (attracting three million visitors), the development of a student and university center (with more than 110,000 students, the 3rd largest in France behind Paris and Lyon), its ranking as City of Art and History since in 2004 and the events of Lille 2004 (European Capital of Culture) and Lille 3000 are the main symbols of this revival. In 2020, the European metropolis of Lille will be "world capital of design".

Source: Wikipedia

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The city of Buzău (formerly spelled Buzeu or Buzĕu; Romanian pronunciation: [buˈzəw] (listen)) is the county seat of Buzău County, Romania, in the historical region of Muntenia. It lies near the right bank of the Buzău River, between the south-eastern curvature of the Carpathian Mountains and the lowlands of Bărăgan Plain. Buzău is a railway hub in south-eastern Romania, where railways that link Bucharest to Moldavia and Transylvania to the Black Sea coast meet. DN2, a segment of European route E85 crosses the city. Buzău's proximity to trade routes helped it develop its role as a commerce hub in older days, and as an industrial centre during the 20th century. During the Middle Ages, Buzău was a market town and Eastern Orthodox episcopal see in Wallachia. It faced a period of repeated destruction during the 17th and 18th centuries, nowadays symbolized on the city seal by the Phoenix bird. In the 19th century, after the end of that era, the city began to recover. The economy underwent industrialization, Buzău became a railway hub, and public education became available.

At this time, the Communal Palace, the city's landmark building, and Crâng Park, the main recreational area, were built. The communist regime after World War II brought forced industrialization and the tripling of the city's population. Some of the factories open at the time are still functioning within the framework of market economy. There are no universities based in Buzău, and only a few universities from other cities have remote learning facilities here. The main educational institutions here are B.P. Hasdeu high-school (where Nobel laureate George Emil Palade studied) and Mihai Eminescu high-school. The city has a number of other secondary schools, in addition to elementary schools. The Vasile Voiculescu County Library and Buzău County Museum are based in the city. The latter also manages an ethnography exhibit in the city, as well as the Vasile Voiculescu memorial house in Pârscov and the amber exhibit at Colți.

Source: Wikipedia