Curated category
Capitals of former countries
- Austin, TexasAustin, Texas was formally incorporated on the 27th of December 1839, named in honor of Stephen F. Austin, the man history remembers as the Father of Texas.
- Richmond, VirginiaRichmond, Virginia sits at the James River's fall line, a geographic fact that has shaped nearly everything about it. The point where the river's rapids meet…
- GdańskAt 04:45 in the morning on the 1st of September 1939, the first shots of World War II were fired on a Polish military depot at Westerplatte, in a city the…
- FlorenceFlorence holds the greatest concentration of art in proportion to its size anywhere in the world, and some visitors react to it physically.
- MunichMunich draws over six million visitors to a single festival every autumn, when Oktoberfest spreads across 85 acres of a meadow called Theresienwiese.
- TurinTurin sits at the foot of the Alps, on the western bank of the River Po, and it has been the stage for more of Italian history than almost any other city.
- YorkYork sits at the meeting point of two rivers, the Ouse and the Foss, in North Yorkshire, and its story stretches back nearly ten thousand years.
- Córdoba, SpainCórdoba, Spain sits in the Guadalquivir Valley under some of the most punishing summer heat in all of Europe, where average highs reach 37 degrees Celsius in…
- HoustonHouston was founded by land investors on the 30th of August 1836, at the spot where Buffalo Bayou meets White Oak Bayou.
- VeniceVenice sits on 126 islands in a shallow lagoon wedged between the mouths of the Po and the Piave rivers in northeastern Italy.
- East BerlinEast Berlin sat behind a wall for nearly three decades, a city split in two by concrete, wire, and the weight of competing ideologies.
- KrakówKraków sits on the Vistula River in southern Poland, and for roughly six centuries it was the royal capital of a kingdom, the seat of an empire, the target…
- GenoaGenoa sits wedged between the Ligurian Sea and the Apennine Mountains, a city that Petrarch once called la Superba, "the superb one," for its glories on the…
- LiègeLiège sits where two rivers meet. The Meuse and the Ourthe converge in the valley that has shaped this Belgian city's character for more than fifteen…
- RavennaRavenna sits in the flatlands of northern Italy, an inland city that was once washed by the Adriatic Sea, and it has been the capital of more empires than…
- DubrovnikDubrovnik sits at the southern tip of Croatia's Dalmatia coast, its limestone walls rising straight from the Adriatic Sea.
- ValenciaValencia stands on the banks of the Turia River, where Roman soldiers planted a colony in 138 BC and gave it a name meaning "strength" or "valour." More than…
- IstanbulIstanbul is the only city in the world that stands on two continents, with about two-thirds of its more than 15 million people living in Europe and the rest…
- ConstantinopleConstantinople stood at the crossing point of two continents and two seas, a city so singular that it was known simply as "the City" to everyone who lived…