Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv-Jaffa (Hebrew תֵּל-אָבִיב-יָפוֹ Tel Avīv-Jafō, usually just Tel Aviv) is the economic and social center of Israel and is considered the largest or second largest city in the country, depending on the assessment of the status of Jerusalem under international law. The metropolitan region of Gush Dan, with the Tel Aviv district and a total of about 254 municipalities, has a population of more than 3 million, or about one-third of Israel's total population.

Founded in 1909, Tel Aviv was originally a suburb of the ancient port city of Jaffa, with which it was united in 1950. In the first years after the founding of the state of Israel, the city was the seat of government. It is still home to almost all foreign embassies. It is also the seat of the national stock exchange (Tel Aviv Stock Exchange) and Tel Aviv University.

Tel Aviv-Jaffa is considered one of the largest economic metropolises in the Middle East. The White City, largely built in the Bauhaus style, is the world's largest center of buildings in the International Style and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2003.

Importance of the city

In 2018, the city had a population of 451,523, making it the second largest city in Israel after the capital Jerusalem. The Tel Aviv metropolitan area called Gush Dan covers a densely populated area with the neighboring cities of Ramat Gan, Giw'atajim, Cholon, Bat Jam and Bnei Brak, located up to 14 km from the Mediterranean coast, and is the largest metropolitan area in the country with a population of about 3.8 million. After the establishment of the State of Israel, most countries set up their embassies in Tel Aviv, as the status of Jerusalem was considered unclear according to the UN partition decisions.

After Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1980 and declared "complete and united Jerusalem" as Israel's capital in the Jerusalem Law, the United Nations Security Council, in its Resolution 478, called on all states that had their embassies in Jerusalem to withdraw them. As a result, almost all diplomatic missions today are located in and around Tel Aviv. The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, the country's most important stock exchange, and the Israeli intelligence service Mossad also have their headquarters here.

According to popular belief, Tel Aviv was once built on sand dunes. The city center is located directly on the sea and partly only a few meters above sea level. In 2018, the science magazine Nature named Tel Aviv's White City, along with Rhodes, Istanbul and Dubrovnik or the Libyan site of Leptis Magna, for example, as one of 47 UNESCO World Heritage Sites on the Mediterranean threatened by flooding or erosion due to global warming. In the negative ranking of _{CO2 emitters,} Israel ranked 45th in the world in 2020 with 7.5 T/inhabitant.

Climate