Tel Aviv

Author: HebrewText

Tel Aviv, officially Tel Aviv-Yafo (Hebrew: תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ‎ for "Spring Mound"), is the second most populous city in Israel. The city is situated on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline, on a land area of 51.4 square kilometers (19.8 sq mi). It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, home to 3.3 million residents as of 2010. The city is governed by the Tel Aviv-Yafo municipality, headed by Ron Huldai. Residents of Tel Aviv are referred to as Tel Avivim.

Tel Aviv was founded in 1909 by the Jewish Community of Yaffo outskirts of the ancient port city of Jaffa (Hebrew: יָפוֹ‎‎). The growth of Tel Aviv soon outpaced Jaffa, which had a majority Arab population in this period. Tel Aviv and Jaffa were merged into a single municipality in 1950, two years after the establishment of the State of Israel. Tel Aviv's White City, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003, comprises the world's largest concentration of Bauhaus buildings.

Tel Aviv is a beta+ world city, alongside cities such as Barcelona and San Francisco. Known as "The City That Never Sleeps", its beaches, parks, bars, cafés, restaurants, shopping, cosmopolitan lifestyle and 24-hour culture have made it a popular destination, visited by over 1.6 million foreign tourists annually. Tel Aviv is an economic hub, home to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, corporate offices and research and development centers. It is the country's financial capital and a major performing arts and business center. Tel Aviv has the second-largest economy in the Middle East, and is the 19th most expensive city in the world. In 2007, New York City-based David Kaufman named it the "Mediterranean's New Capital of Cool". In 2010, Knight Frank's world city survey ranked it 34th globally. Tel Aviv has been named the third "hottest city for 2011" (behind only New York City and Tangier) by Lonely Planet, third-best in the Middle East & Africa by Travel + Leisure magazine, and the ninth-best beach city in the world by National Geographic.

(By Wikipedia)