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Known as the “Pink City of India” due to its distinctive pink coloured buildings, Jaipur is the largest city in the state of Rajasthan and one of India’s most stunning cities.

You may be wondering why it is called the “Pink City,” and this is all down to Maharaja Sawai Ram Singh who had the whole city painted pink in 1876, to entice Prince Albert and Queen Victoria to visit Jaipur as part of their tour of India, as pink was considered the colour of hospitality at the time.

There is so much to see in Jaipur and it has an amazing variety of palaces, forts, temples, monuments, museums, arts and crafts, and various market places to explore.

The city is known for its beauty, and it is unique in its straight-line planning. Its buildings are predominantly rose-coloured, and it is sometimes called the “pink city.” The chief buildings are the City Palace, part of which is home to the royal family of Jaipur; Jantar Mantar, an 18th-century open-air observatory that was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2010; Hawa Mahal (Hall of Winds); Ram Bagh palace; and Nahargarh, the Tiger Fort. Other public buildings include a museum and a library. Jaipur is the seat of the University of Rajasthan, founded in 1947.

The city is surrounded by fertile alluvial plains to the east and south and hill chains and desert areas to the north and west. Bajra (pearl millet), barley, gram (chickpeas), pulses, and cotton are the chief crops grown in the region. Iron ore, beryllium, mica, feldspar, marble, copper, and garnet deposits are worked. In addition to Amer, other nearby attractions include Sariska National Park to the northeast.

 

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New York City is known by many nicknames—such as “the City that Never Sleeps” or “Gotham”—but the most popular one is probably “the Big Apple.” How did this nickname come about? Although uses of the phrase are documented in the early 1900s, the term first became popular in the 1920s when John J. Fitz Gerald, a sports writer, started a column about horse racing called “Around the Big Apple.” However, it wasn’t until a tourism campaign in the 1970s that the nickname came to be synonymous with New York City.

The most populous city in the U.S. also goes by the name Gotham, which was first used by Washington Irving in an 1807 issue of his literary magazine about the legends of an English village named Gotham.

New York City is frequently shortened to simply "New York", "NY", or "NYC". New York City is also known as "The City" in some parts of the Eastern United States, in particular New York State and surrounding U.S. states. Other monikers have taken the form of "Hong Kong on the Hudson" or "Baghdad on the Subway", references in different cases to the city's prominence or its immigrant groups.

 

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Cottonopolis was a 19th-century nickname for Manchester, as it was a metropolis and the centre of the cotton industry.

Early cotton mills powered by water were built in Lancashire and its neighbouring counties. In 1781 Richard Arkwright opened the world's first steam-driven textile mill on Miller Street in Manchester. Although initially inefficient, the arrival of steam power signified the beginning of the mechanisation that was to enhance the burgeoning textile industries in Manchester into the world's first centre of mass production. As textile manufacture switched from the home to factories, Manchester and towns in south and east Lancashire became the largest and most productive cotton spinning centre in the world using in 1871, 32% of global cotton production. Ancoats, part of a planned expansion of Manchester, became the first industrial suburb centred on steam power. There were mills whose architectural innovations included fireproofing by use of iron and reinforced concrete.

The number of cotton mills on Manchester peaked at 108 in 1853. As the numbers declined, cotton mills opened in the surrounding towns, Bury, Oldham (at its zenith the most productive cotton spinning town in the world, Rochdale, Bolton (known as "Spindleton" in 1892) and in Blackburn, Darwen, Rawtenstall, Todmorden and Burnley. As the manufacturing centre of Manchester shrank, the commercial centre, warehouses, banks and services for the 280 cotton towns and villages within a 12-mile radius of the Royal Exchange grew. The term "Cottonopolis" came into use in about 1870.

The commercial centre of Cottonopolis was the exchange's trading hall. The first of Manchester's exchanges was built in the market place by Sir Oswald Mosley in 1727 for chapmen to transact business. It was subsequently re-built three times. Thomas Harrison built an exchange in the Greek Revival style between 1806 and 1809. After it opened, membership was required and trading was not restricted to textiles. Its early members were the owners of mills and warehouses, but later business was conducted by their agents and managers. Harrison's exchange was enlarged between 1847 and 1849 by Alex Mills. After a visit in 1851, Queen Victoria granted the exchange the title the Manchester Royal Exchange. The third exchange, designed by Mills and Murgatroyd, opened in 1874. It was built in the Classical style with Corinthian columns and a dome. The Royal Exchange was lavishly re-built by architects Bradshaw Gass & Hope in 1914–21 and at the time had the largest trading room in the world. Its vast hall was 29.2 metres high and had an area of 3683 square metres. The exchange had a membership of up to 11,000 cotton merchants who met every Tuesday and Friday to trade their wares beneath the 38.5-metre high central glass dome. It was badly damaged in World War II and ceased operation for cotton trading in 1968.

 

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Mumbai, the capital city of Maharashtra is called the “city of dreams” or “Mayanagri” as they call. It has gained this epithet over the years not just because it offers limitless opportunities for the Indian citizens across the states, but also for people across the borders.

Now it would seem that his writerly evocation has been borne out by the revelation that Mumbaikars work the maximum hours in the world, The Price And Earnings 2018 report by the Swiss investment bank UBS avers that at an average of 3,314.7 hours a year, Mumbaikars work longer than denizens of 77 cities around the world, which certainly bears out its claim to be the ‘City that Never Sleeps’. But it does nothing to burnish its reputation of being the City of Dreams considering the report also reveals Mumbaikars have to work the maximum to earn enough to afford everything from a haircut to a top-end smartphone as it ranks just above Cairo at the bottom in terms of average hourly earnings, with Geneva at the top.

Parisians, the report revealed, put in only half as many working hours as Mumbaikars but take a month off on average. Mumbaikars, however, take a mere 10 days off annually, only marginally more than Beijing, Los Angeles and Hanoi residents. The inhabitants of Lagos take the fewest leaves—a suspiciously meagre six six days—but then practically every day is a holiday there obviously as they work only an average of 609 hours annually. Going by these numbers, maximum work and minimum play could very well turn Mumbai into Dull City.

 

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Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands. With more than one million inhabitants in its urban area (and almost two and a half million inhabitants in its metropolitan area), it is the country's largest city and its financial, cultural, and creative centre.

Amsterdam derives its name from the city’s origin as “Dam” of river “Amstel”. In the past, the name was "Amstelredamme" which later changed as “Amsterdam”. Amsterdam is one of the most popular destinations in Europe, attracting over 7 million international travellers annually.

Amsterdam is colloquially known as Venice of the North because of its lovely canals that criss-cross the city, its impressive architecture and more than 1,500 bridges. There is something for every traveller's taste here; whether you prefer culture and history, serious partying, or just the relaxing charm of an old European city.

Settled as a small fishing village in the late 12th century, Amsterdam became one of the most important trading centres in the world during the Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century, with the first stock exchange and the joint ventures that gave birth to modern day Capitalism. The city's small medieval centre rapidly expanded as the Jordaan and the Canal Belt neighbourhoods were constructed; the latter's cultural significance was acknowledged when it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2010. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the city expanded in all directions, with many new neighbourhoods and suburbs designed in modernist styles.

Amsterdam is not the seat of the government, which is in The Hague. It has always been a city that attracted many people from outside its borders. Nowadays it's the city with the most different nationalities in the world (178 in 2010). The city has an informal atmosphere unlike other capital cities its size. In fact, Amsterdam has a history of non-conformism, tolerance and progressivism, all of which come together in its liberal policies concerning cannabis and teleiophilic prostitution. Other attractions include the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum, the Anne Frank House, the Flower Market, Albert Cuyp Market, and the Vondelpark.

 

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