Milan // Italy

Milan is widely regarded as a global capital in industrial design, fashion and architecture. In the 1950s and 60s, as the main industrial centre of Italy and one of Europe's most dynamic cities, Milan became a world capital of design and architecture

Milan is a major national and international centre of the performing arts, most notably opera. Milan hosts La Scala operahouse, considered one of the most prestigious operahouses in the world.
Milan is home to many cultural institutions, museums and art galleries, that account for about a tenth of the national total of visitors and receipts.
Like most cities in Italy, Milan has developed his own local culinary tradition, which, as it is typical for North Italian cuisines, uses more frequently rice than pasta, butter than vegetable oil and features almost no tomato or fish.
Milan hosted the FIFA World Cup in 1934 and 1990, the UEFA European Football Championship in 1980 and most recently the 2003 World Rowing Championships, the 2009 World Boxing Championships, and some games of the FIVB World Championship in 2010 and the final games of the FIVB World Championship in 2014.

Milan is the only city in Europe that is home to two European Cup/Champions League winning teams - Serie A renewed football clubs A.C. Milan and F.C. Internazionale Milano.

Milan is home to some of Italy's most prominent educational institutions. Milan's higher education system includes 7 universities, 48 faculties and 142 departments, with 185,000 university students in 2011 (approximately 11 percent of the national total) and the largest number of university graduates and postgraduate students (34,000 and more than 5,000, respectively) in Italy.

Milan is one of southern Europe's key transport nodes and one of Italy's most important railway hubs. Its five major railway stations, among which the Milan Central station, are among Italy's busiest. Since the end of 2009, two high speed train lines link Milan to Rome, Naples and Turin, considerably shortening travel times with other major cities in Italy.