“The center of Israel”
Tel Aviv (Hebrew: תֵּל אָבִיב, [tel aˈviv], Arabic: تل أَبيب) is the second most populous city in Israel—after Jerusalem—and the most populous city in the conurbation of Gush Dan, Israel's largest metropolitan area. Located on the country's Mediterranean coastline and with a population of 443,939, it is the economic and technological center of the country. Silicon Wadi is another name for Gush Dan, in comparison to Silicon Valley in California, U.S.
Tel Aviv is governed by the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality, headed by Mayor Ron Huldai, and is home to many foreign embassies. It is a global city and is ranked 34th in the Global Financial Centres Index. Tel Aviv has the third- or fourth-largest economy and the largest economy per capita in the Middle East. The city has the 31st highest cost of living in the world. Tel Aviv receives over 2.5 million international visitors annually. A "party capital" in the Middle East, it has a lively nightlife and 24-hour culture. Tel Aviv is home to Tel Aviv University, the largest university in the country with more than 30,000 students.
The city was founded in 1909 by the Yishuv (Jewish residents) as a modern housing estate on the outskirts of the ancient port city of Jaffa (Hebrew: יָפוֹ Yafo), then part of the Jerusalem province of Ottoman Syria. It was at first called 'Ahuzat Bayit' (lit. "building houses", the name of the association which established the neighbourhood), a name changed the following year to 'Tel Aviv'. Its name means "Ancient Hill of Spring". Other Jewish suburbs of Jaffa established outside Jaffa's Old City even before Tel Aviv, eventually became part of Tel Aviv, the oldest among them being Neve Tzedek (est. 1886).Immigration by mostly Jewish refugees meant that the growth of Tel Aviv soon outpaced that of Jaffa, which had a majority Arab population at the time. Tel Aviv and Jaffa were later merged into a single municipality in 1950, two years after the Israeli Declaration of Independence, which was proclaimed