Manchester | |
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Manchester () is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. The city has a population of 547,627 (as of 2018) and lies within the United Kingdom's second-most populous urban area, with a population of 2.7 million and second-most populous metropolitan area, with a population of 3.3 million. It is fringed by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and an arc of towns with which it forms a continuous conurbation. The local authority for the city is Manchester City Council.
The recorded history of Manchester began with the civilian settlement associated with the Roman fort of Mamucium or Mancunium, which was established in about AD 79 on a sandstone bluff near the confluence of the rivers Medlock and Irwell. Although historically and traditionally a part of Lancashire, areas of Cheshire south of the River Mersey were incorporated into Manchester in the 20th century. The first to be included, Wythenshawe, was added to the city in 1931. Throughout the Middle Ages Manchester remained a manorial township, but began to expand "at an astonishing rate" around the turn of the 19th century. Manchester's unplanned urbanisation was brought on by a boom in textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution, and resulted in it becoming the world's first industrialised city.
Medina | |
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Medina, officially Al Madinah Al Munawwarah (Arabic: المدينة المنورة, romanized: al-Madinat al-Munawwarah, lit. 'The Enlightened City'), commonly simplified as Madīnah or Madinah, is one of the three holiest cities in Islam and the capital of the Medina Region of Saudi Arabia. The 2020 estimated population of the city is 1,488,782, making it the fourth-most populous city in the country. Located at the core of the Madinah Province in the western reaches of the country, the city is distributed over 589 square kilometers (227 square miles), 293 km2 (117 sq. mi.) of which constitutes the city's urban area, while the rest is occupied by the Hejaz mountain range, empty valleys, agricultural spaces, older dormant volcanoes and the Nafud desert.
The city is considered to be the second-holiest of three cities in Islamic tradition, the other two being Mecca and Jerusalem. The Masjid al-Nabawi ('Prophet's Mosque') built by Muhammad in 622 CE, is of exceptional importance in Islam and is the site of burial of the last Islamic prophet. Muslims visit his rawdhah in what is known as Ziyarat at least once in their lifetime, although this is not obligatory. The original name of the city before the advent of Islam was Yathrib and it is referred to by the same name in the Qur'an in Chapter 33, al-Ahzab (The Confederates). It was renamed Madīnat an-Nabī (City of the Prophet or The Prophet's City) after Muhammad's death and later al-Madinah al-Munawwarah (The Enlightened City), before being simplified and shortened to its modern name, Madinah (The City), written in English as Medina. Saudi Arabian road signage uses Madinah and al-Madinah al-Munawwarah interchangeably.The city is known to have existed for over 1500 years before Muhammad's migration from Mecca, otherwise known as the Hijrah.