Oslo: A Capital That Renamed Itself Back After 300 Years
Oslo was known as Christiania, later Kristiania, for nearly 300 years, renamed in 1624 by Danish-Norwegian King Christian IV after a devastating…
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Copenhagen: A Capital Built Around a Harbour It Then Learned to Swim In
Copenhagen’s harbour, once a working industrial waterway lined with shipping infrastructure, has been transformed over the past two decades into a network…
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Porto: The City That Gave Portugal Both Its Name and Its Wine
Porto’s name is believed to be the root of Portugal’s own name, the Roman-era settlement here was known as Portus Cale, a…
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Dubrovnik: A Republic That Bought Its Independence With Diplomacy, Not Armies
Dubrovnik operated for centuries as an independent maritime republic, the Republic of Ragusa, maintaining its autonomy from the 14th century until Napoleon’s…
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Mostar: A Bridge Rebuilt Stone by Stone After It Was Deliberately Destroyed
Mostar’s Old Bridge, Stari Most, originally built by the Ottoman Empire in 1566, stood for over four centuries as one of the…
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Innsbruck: A Capital Where the Mountains Start at the City Limits
Innsbruck sits directly within the Inn River valley, hemmed in tightly enough by the Nordkette mountain range that its peaks are visible…
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Zermatt: A Car-Free Alpine Village Beneath an Unclimbed Mountain
Zermatt has banned petrol and diesel vehicles from its streets since the early 20th century, visitors and residents alike travelling instead by…
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Osaka: The City That Fed Japan, Then Fed Itself Well
Osaka has long carried the nickname “the nation’s kitchen,” a title dating back to the Edo period when the city served as…
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Hanoi: A Capital That Kept Its Old Quarter’s Medieval Street Plan
Hanoi’s Old Quarter still follows a street layout established roughly a thousand years ago, when the area was organised into 36 guild…
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Mexico City: A Metropolis Built on Top of a Sinking Lake
Mexico City is built directly atop the drained bed of Lake Texcoco, the site of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital the Spanish conquered…
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Caracas: A Capital Built in a Valley That Both Shelters and Confines It
Caracas sits in a narrow valley in northern Venezuela, separated from the Caribbean coast by the Avila mountain range, a geography that…
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Georgetown: A Caribbean-Feeling Capital Built Below Sea Level
Georgetown, Guyana’s capital, sits below sea level along the Atlantic coast, protected by an extensive system of sea walls and drainage canals…
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