Beauty of the World Cities

Beijing, China's national capital, is situated at the north edge of the North China Plain. Not far to its northwest is the vast Inner Mongolian Plateau and a hundred kilometers to the east is the Bohai Sea. Beijng is also flanked by the crawling Taihang Mountains to its west and the alluvial plain by the rivers of Yongding and Chaobai to its south.  Located in the  North Temperate Zone   with a continental monsoon climate,   Beijing   enjoys and annual mean temperature of 11.8°C (53.24°F) and annual mean precipitation of 630 mm, which concentrates mainly in the summer. January is the coldest month with the monthly mean temperature of -4.7°C (23.54°F) while July the hottest month with a mean temperature of 26.1°C (78.98°F). Beijing's spring is relatively short, and people used to say that when the last day of the winter is gone, the summer is about to set in. Summer is usually hot with abundant rainfall. Autumn days are cool with clear sky and gentle breeze, maki...

San Francisco holds a secure place in the  United States ’   romantic  dream of itself—a cool, elegant, handsome, worldly seaport whose steep streets offer breathtaking views of one of the world’s greatest bays. According to the dream, San Franciscans are sophisticates whose lives hold full measures of such civilized pleasures as music, art, and good food. Their children are to be pitied, for, as the wife of publishing magnate  Nelson Doubleday  once said, “They will probably grow up thinking all cities are so wonderful.” To San Franciscans their city is a magical place, almost an  island , saved by its location and history from the sprawl and monotony that afflicts so much of urban  California . Since  World War II , however, San Francisco has had to face the stark realities of urban life: congestion, air and  water pollution , violence and vandalism, and the general decay of the inner city. San Francisco’s  makeup  has been changi...

Cape Town is known as a great holiday destination year around a place where neither season really experiences extremes of temperature, thanks to prevailing winds. The summer months are from December to February. The days are generally warm to hot and dry, but the humidity is low. While winters are from June to August and tend to be wet and cool, (this does not mean rain every day although it can rain for two weeks straight on occasion). It can get very cold at night, with temperatures as low as 2 to 3°C (this is the temperature of the ocean so it will not get colder unless you go far inland) but 5-7°C is normal. It will become warmer during the day, with temperatures between 9-15°C typical. It is often very cloudy with far fewer hours of sunshine. (The rains are brought on by fierce northwesterly gales). However be prepared though for 'four seasons in one day'. The peninsula's shape creates microclimates, so you can be basking in the sun on one side of the mountain and shel...

Barcelona is Spain's second largest city, in population, with around 3,200,000 people. This innovative, diverse city is located on the northeast coast of the peninsula along the Mediterranean Sea. Barcelona is the capital of the Catalonian region, as well as the province of Barcelona. Although Spanish is the official language in Spain, in the Catalonian region, Catalan is also recognized as the co-official language. The weather is typically decent year-round, with the nicest months being May until July, as well as September, generally. Like many Spanish cities, August tends to be the hottest month, with temperatures soaring into the mid 30s at times. The winters are cooler, but there is not much precipitation. Barcelona is ranked just after Madrid as the country's main source of economy. It is also home to one of the most major Mediterranean ports. Barcelona's airport is the second largest in Spain, as well. Barcelona was known for its manufacturing industry, and that is st...

Vancouver , city, southwestern British Columbia , Canada . It is the major urban centre of western Canada and the focus of one of the country’s most populous metropolitan regions. Vancouver lies between Burrard Inlet (an arm of the Strait of Georgia ) to the north and the Fraser River delta to the south, opposite Vancouver Island . The city is just north of the U.S. state of Washington . It has a fine natural harbour on a superb site facing the sea and mountains. Pop. (2011) 603,502; metro. area, 2,313,328; (2016) 631,486; metro. area, 2,463,431. The region had long been inhabited by several Native American (First Nations) peoples when a trading post, Fort Langley, was set up by the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1827 near the mouth of the Fraser River. Few people of European descent lived in the area until the late 1850s, when the town of New Westminster (now a suburb of Vancouver) was established near the site of the original fort (in 1839 the fort itself had been relocated a little far...

Venice Venice, Italian Venezia, city, major seaport, and capital of both the provincia (province) of Venezia and the regione (region) of Veneto, northern Italy. An island city, it was once the centre of a maritime republic. It was the greatest seaport in late medieval Europe and the continent’s commercial and cultural link to Asia. Venice is unique environmentally, architecturally, and historically, and in its days as a republic the city was styled la serenissima (“the most serene” or “sublime”). It remains a major Italian port in the northern Adriatic Sea and is one of the world’s oldest tourist and cultural centres. Since the fall of the Venetian republic in 1797, the city has held an unrivaled place in the Western imagination and has been endlessly described in prose and verse. The luminous spectacle of ornate marbled and frescoed palaces, bell towers, and domes reflected in the sparkling waters of the lagoon under a blue Adriatic sky has been painted, photographed, and filmed to s...