The City of Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv (Hebrew: תֵּל־אָבִיב, Arabic: تل أبيب) or Tel Aviv-Yafo, is the second most populous city in Israel, behind Jerusalem, with a population of 414,600.
Tel Aviv is a global city, a technological and 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 after Dubai, and is the 31st most expensive city in the world. With 2.5 million international visitors annually, Tel Aviv is the fifth-most-visited city in the Middle East. Known as "The City that Never Sleeps" and a "party capital", it has a lively nightlife, dynamic atmosphere and a famous 24-hour culture.
Tel Aviv forms part of the Tel Aviv Metropolitan Area, also known as Gush Dan, which constitutes Israel's largest metropolitan area so as to house 3,464,100 residents, 42% of the country's population. Tel Aviv-Yafo is the largest and most populous section of the metropolitan area.
The city is located on the Mediterranean coast in central-west Israel and is governed by the Tel Aviv-Yafo municipality, headed by Ron Huldai. Tel Aviv is home to many foreign embassies. Residents of Tel Aviv are referred to as Tel Avivim or by the singulars: Tel Avivi (for males) and Tel Avivit (for females).
Tel Aviv was founded by the Jewish community on the outskirts of the ancient port city of Jaffa (Hebrew: יָפוֹ Yafo) in 1909. Immigration by mostly Jewish refugees meant that the growth of Tel Aviv soon outpaced Jaffa's, which had a majority Arab population at the time. 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.