name	Tel Aviv
native name
iso	Tell ʔabib Yapo
settlement type	City
image shield	TelAvivEmblem.svg
nickname	The White City, The City That Never Sleeps, The Big Orange
pushpin map	Israel
pushpin map caption	Location of Tel Aviv in Israel
subdivision type	Country
subdivision name
subdivision type1	District
subdivision name1	Tel Aviv
subdivision type2	Metropolitan Area
subdivision name2	Gush Dan
established title	Founded
established date	April 11, 1909
government type	Mayor-council
governing body	Tel Aviv municipality
leader party	Labor
leader title	Mayor
leader name	Ron Huldai
area total km2	51.4
area urban km2	176
area metro km2	1516
elevation m	5
population total	404,400
population rank	2nd in Israel
population urban	1,284,400
population metro	3,325,700
population as of	2010
population density km2	7867.7
population density rank	12th in Israel
population density urban km2	7297.7
population density metro km2	2193.7
population demonym	Tel Avivi
demographics type1	Ethnicity
demographics1 title1	Jews
demographics1 info1	91%
demographics1 title2	Muslims
demographics1 info2	3%
demographics1 title3	Christians
demographics1 info3	1%
demographics1 title4	Unclassified
demographics1 info4	5%
timezone1	IST
utc offset1	+2
timezone1 dst	IDT
utc offset1 dst	+3
postal code type	Postal code
postal code	61999
area code type	Area code
area code	+972 (Israel) 3 (City)
website	tel-aviv.gov.il
footnotes	}}

Tel Aviv (), officially Tel Aviv-Yafo (, ; ''''), is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with a population of 3.3 million residents as of 2010. The city is governed by the Tel Aviv-Yafo municipality, headed by Ron Huldai. Residents of Tel Aviv are referred to as ''Tel Avivim''.

Tel Aviv was founded in 1909 by the Jewish Community of Jaffa (, ''Yafo''; , ''Yaffa''), on the outskirts of the ancient port city. The growth of Tel Aviv soon outpaced Jaffa, 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.

Tel Aviv is a beta+ world city, alongside cities such as Barcelona and San Francisco. Known as "The City That Never Sleeps", it is a popular tourism destination on the Mediterranean with 2.7 million international visitors annually. It is renowned for its 24-hour culture, beaches, bars, restaurants, cafés, parks, shopping, cosmopolitan lifestyle, and landmark neighborhoods such as Old Jaffa and Neve Tzedek. Tel Aviv is an 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, and is the 19th most expensive city in the world. In 2007, New York City-based David Kaufman named it the "Mediterranean's New Capital of Cool". In 2010, ''Knight Frank'''s world city survey ranked it 34th globally. Tel Aviv has been named the third "hottest city for 2011" (behind only New York City and Tangier) by ''Lonely Planet'', third-best in the Middle East and Africa by ''Travel + Leisure magazine'' (behind only Cape Town and Jerusalem), and the ninth-best beach city in the world by ''National Geographic''.

Etymology

''Tel Aviv'' is the Hebrew title of Theodor Herzl's ''Altneuland'' ("Old New Land"), translated from German by Nahum Sokolow. Sokolow had adopted the name of a Mesopotamian site in : "Then I came to them of the captivity at Tel Aviv, that lived by the river Chebar, and to where they lived; and I sat there overwhelmed among them seven days."; The name was chosen in 1910 from several suggestions, including "Herzliya". It was found fitting as it embraced the idea of a renaissance in the ancient Jewish homeland. ''Aviv'' is Hebrew for "spring", symbolizing renewal, and ''tel'' is a man-made mound accumulating layers of civilization built one over the other and symbolizing the ancient.

Theories vary about the etymology of Jaffa or ''Yafo'' in Hebrew. Some believe that the name derives from ''yafah'' or ''yofi'', Hebrew for "beautiful" or "beauty". Another tradition is that Japheth, son of Noah, founded the city and that it was named after him.

History

Jaffa

The ancient port of Jaffa changed hands many times in the course of history. Archeological excavations from 1955 to 1974 unearthed towers and gates from the Middle Bronze Age. Subsequent excavations, from 1997 onwards, helped date earlier discoveries. They also exposed sections of a packed-sandstone glacis and a "massive brick wall", dating from the Late Bronze Age as well as a temple "attributed to the Sea Peoples" and dwellings from the Iron Age. Remnants of buildings from the Persian, Hellenistic and Pharaonic periods were also discovered.

The city is first mentioned in letters from 1470 BCE that record its conquest by Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose III. Jaffa is mentioned several times in the Bible, as the port from which Jonah set sail for Tarshish; as bordering on the territory of the Tribe of Dan; and as the port at which the wood for Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem arrived from Lebanon. According to some sources it has been a port for at least 4,000 years.

In 1099, the Christian armies of the First Crusade, led by Godfrey of Bouillon occupied Jaffa, which had been abandoned by the Muslims, fortified the town and improved its harbor. As the County of Jaffa, the town soon became important as the main sea supply route for the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Jaffa was captured by Saladin in 1192 but swiftly re-taken by Richard Coeur de Lion, who added to its defenses. In 1223, Emperor Frederick II added further fortications. Crusader domination ended in 1268, when the Mamluk Sultan Baibars captured the town, destroyed its harbor and razed its fortifications. In 1336, when a new Crusade was being planned, Al-Nasir Muhammad had the harbor destroyed to prevent the Franks from landing there. For the same reason, both the town and the harbor were destroyed in 1345. In the 16th century, Jaffa was conquered by the Ottomans and was administered as a village in the Sanjak of Gaza.

Napoleon besieged the city in 1799 and killed scores of inhabitants; a plague epidemic followed, decimating the remaining population. The surrendering garrison of several thousand Muslims was massacred.

Jaffa began to grow as an urban center in the early 18th century, when the Ottoman government in Istanbul intervened to guard the port and reduce attacks by Bedouins and pirates. However, the real expansion came during the 19th century, when the population grew from 2,500 in 1806 to 17,000 in 1886. From 1800 to 1870, Jaffa was surrounded by walls and towers, which were torn down to allow for expansion as security improved. The sea wall, high, remained intact until the 1930s, when it was built over during a renovation of the port by the British Mandatory authorities. During the mid-19th century, the city grew prosperous from trade, especially of silk and Jaffa oranges, with Europe. In the 1860s Jaffa's small Sephardic community was joined by Jews from Morocco and small numbers of European Ashkenazi Jews, making by 1882 a total Jewish population of more than 1,500.

The first Jews to build outside of Jaffa, in the area of modern day Tel Aviv, were Yemenite Jews. These homes, built in 1881, became the core of Kerem HaTeimanim (Hebrew for "the Vineyard of the Yemenites"). In 1896 the Yemenite Jews established Mahane Yehuda, and in 1904, Mahane Yossef. These neighbourhoods later became the Shabazi neighbourhood.

During the 1880s, Ashkenazi immigration to Jaffa increased with the onset of the First Aliyah. The new arrivals were motivated more by Zionism than religion and came to farm the land and engage in productive labor. In keeping with their pioneer ideology, some chose to settle in the sand dunes north of Jaffa. The beginning of modern-day Tel Aviv is marked by the construction of Neve Tzedek, a neighborhood built by Ashkenazi settlers between 1887 and 1896.

Ahuzat Bayit

The Second Aliyah led to further expansion. In 1906, a group of Jews, among them residents of Jaffa, followed the initiative of Akiva Arye Weiss and banded together to form the ''Ahuzat Bayit'' (lit. "homestead") society. The society's goal was to form a "Hebrew urban centre in a healthy environment, planned according to the rules of aesthetics and modern hygiene". The urban planning for the new city was influenced by the ideas of the Garden city movement. In 1908, the group purchased of dunes northeast of Jaffa. Following this purchase, Meir Dizengoff, who later became Tel Aviv's first mayor, decided to join Ahuzat Bayit. His vision for Tel Aviv involved peaceful co-existence with the Arabs. Eventually David Ben Gurion would announce the creation of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948 from Meir Dizengoff's home in Tel Aviv.

In April 1909, 66 Jewish families gathered on a desolate sand dune on what is now Rothschild Boulevard to parcel out the land by lottery using seashells. This gathering is considered the official date of the establishment of Tel Aviv, although some neighbourhoods, such as Kerem HaTeimanim, already existed. The lottery was organised by Akiva Arye Weiss, president of the building society. The names of the families were inscribed on white shells and the plot number on shells of a different color. Within a year, Herzl, Ahad Ha'am, Yehuda Halevi, Lilienblum, and Rothschild streets were built; a water system was installed; and 66 houses (including some on six subdivided plots) were completed. At the end of Herzl Street, a plot was allocated for a new building for the Herzliya Hebrew High School, founded in Jaffa in 1906. On May 21, 1910, the name Tel Aviv was adopted. Tel Aviv was planned as an independent Hebrew city with wide streets and boulevards, running water at each house and street lights.

By 1914, Tel Aviv had grown to more than . However, growth halted in 1917 when the Ottoman authorities expelled the Jews of Jaffa and Tel Aviv. A report published in ''The New York Times'' by United States Consul Garrels in Alexandria, Egypt described the Jaffa deportation of early April 1917. The orders of evacuation were aimed chiefly at the Jewish population.

Under the British Mandate

Under British administration, political friction between Jews and Arabs in Palestine increased. On May 1, 1921, the Jaffa Riots erupted and an Arab mob killed dozens of Jewish residents. In the wake of this violence, many Jews left Jaffa for Tel Aviv, increasing the population of Tel Aviv from 2,000 in 1920 to around 34,000 by 1925. New businesses opened in Tel Aviv, leading to the decline of Jaffa as a commercial center. In 1925, Patrick Geddes drew up a master plan for Tel Aviv that was adopted by the city council led by Meir Dizengoff. The core idea was the development of a Garden City. The boundaries he worked within, the Yarkon River in the North and Ibn Gvirol Street in the East, are now the boundaries of Tel Aviv's Old North.

Tel Aviv continued to expand in 1926, but suffered an economic setback between 1927 and 1930. The Ben Gurion House was built in 1900-02, part of a new worker's housing development. At the same time, cultural life was given a boost by the establishment of the Ohel Theater and the decision of Habima Theatre to make Tel Aviv its permanent base in 1931. Tel Aviv gained municipal status in 1934. The population rose dramatically during the Fifth Aliyah when the Nazis came to power in Germany. As the Jews fled Europe, many settled in Tel Aviv, bringing the population in 1937 to 150,000, compared to Jaffa's 69,000 residents. Within two years, it had reached 160,000, which was over a third of the country's total Jewish population. Many new immigrants remained after disembarking in Jaffa, turning the city into a center of urban life. In the wake of the 1936–39 Arab revolt, a local port independent of Jaffa was built in 1938, and Lydda Airport (later Ben Gurion Airport) and Sde Dov Airport opened between 1937 and 1938.

Tel Aviv's White City, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2004, emerged in the 1930s. Many of the German Jewish architects trained at the Bauhaus, the Modernist school of architecture closed by the Nazis in 1933, fled Germany. Some, like architect Arieh Sharon, came to Palestine and adapted the architectural outlook of the Bauhaus as well as other similar schools, to local conditions, creating what is claimed to be the largest concentration of buildings in the International Style in the world.

Tel Aviv was a major target of the Italian Bombing of Palestine in World War II. On September 9, 1940, 137 were killed in the bombing of Tel Aviv.

According to the 1947 UN Partition Plan for dividing Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, Tel Aviv, by then a city of 230,000, was slated for inclusion in the Jewish state. Jaffa with, as of 1945, a population of 101,580 people, 53,930 of whom were Muslim and 16,800 Christian, making up the Arab population, and 30,820 Jewish, was designated as part of the Arab state. The Arabs, however, rejected the plan. Between 1947 and 1948, tensions grew on the border between Tel Aviv and Jaffa, with Arab snipers who were firing at Jews from the minaret of the Hassan Bek Mosque. The Haganah and Irgun Jewish forces retaliated with a siege on Jaffa. From April 1948, the Arab residents began to leave. When Jaffa was conquered by Israeli forces on May 14, few remained.

After Israeli independence

When Israel declared Independence on May 14, 1948, the population of Tel Aviv was over 200,000. Tel Aviv was the temporary government center of the State of Israel until the government moved to Jerusalem in December 1949. Due to the international dispute over the status of Jerusalem, most foreign embassies remained in or near Tel Aviv. In the early 1980s, 13 embassies in Jerusalem moved to Tel Aviv as part of the UN's measures responding to Israel's 1980 Jerusalem Law. Today, all but two embassies are in Tel Aviv or environs. The boundaries of Tel Aviv and Jaffa became a matter of contention between the Tel Aviv municipality and the Israeli government in 1948. The former wished to incorporate only the northern Jewish suburbs of Jaffa, while the latter wanted a more complete unification. The issue also had international sensitivity, since the main part of Jaffa was in the Arab portion of the United Nations Partition Plan, whereas Tel Aviv was not, and no armistice agreements had yet been signed. On 10 December 1948, the government announced the annexation to Tel Aviv of Jaffa's Jewish suburbs, the ex-Arab neighborhood of Abu Kabir, the ex-Arab village of Salama and some of its agricultural land, and the Jewish 'Hatikva' slum. On 25 February 1949, the abandoned Arab village of al-Shaykh Muwannis was also annexed to Tel Aviv. On 18 May 1949, Manshiya and part of Jaffa's central zone were added, for the first time including land that had been in the Arab portion of the UN partition plan. The government voted on the unification of Tel Aviv and Jaffa on 4 October 1949, but the decision was not implemented until 24 April 1950 due to the opposition of Tel Aviv mayor Israel Rokach. The name of the unified city was Tel Aviv until 19 August 1950, when it was renamed Tel Aviv-Yafo in order to preserve the historical name Jaffa. Tel Aviv thus grew to . In 1949, a memorial to the 60 founders of Tel Aviv was constructed. Over the past 60 years, Tel Aviv has developed into a secular, liberal-minded center with a vibrant nightlife and café culture. In the 1960s, some of the older buildings were demolished, making way for the country's first high-rises. Shalom Meir Tower was Israel's tallest building until 1999. Tel Aviv's population peaked in the early 1960s at 390,000, representing 16 percent of the country's total. A long period of steady decline followed, however, and by the late 1980s the city had an aging population of 317,000. High property prices pushed families out and deterred young people from moving in.

At this time, gentrification began in the poor neighborhoods of southern Tel Aviv, and the old port in the north was renewed. New laws were introduced to protect Modernist buildings, and efforts to preserve them were aided by UNESCO recognition of the Tel Aviv's White City as a world heritage site. In the early 1990s, the decline in population was reversed, partly due to the large wave of immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Tel Aviv also began to emerge as a high-tech center. The construction of many skyscrapers and high-tech office buildings followed. In 1993, Tel Aviv was categorized as a world city. The city is regarded as a strong candidate for global city status.

In the Gulf War in 1991, Tel Aviv was attacked by Scud rockets from Iraq, but there were few casualties and no fatalities. The inhabitants of the southeastern suburb of HaTikva erected an angel-monument as a sign of their gratitude, that "it was through a great miracle, that many people were preserved from being killed by a direct hit of a Scud rocket."

On November 4, 1995, Israel's prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, was assassinated at a rally in Tel Aviv in support of the Oslo peace accord. The outdoor plaza where this occurred, formerly known as Kikar Malchei Yisrael, was renamed Rabin Square.

Since the First Intifada, Tel Aviv has suffered from Palestinian political violence. The first suicide attack in Tel Aviv occurred on October 19, 1994, on the Line 5 bus, when a bomber killed himself and 21 civilians as part of a Hamas suicide campaign. The most deadly attack occurred on June 1, 2001, during the Second Intifada, when a suicide bomber exploded at the entrance to the Dolphinarium discotheque, killing 21 and injuring more than 100. The most recent attack in the city occurred on April 17, 2006, when nine people were killed and at least 40 wounded in a suicide bombing near the old central bus station.

In 2009, Tel Aviv celebrated its official centennial. In addition to city- and country-wide celebrations, digital collections of historical materials were assembled. These include the History section of the official Tel Aviv-Yafo Centennial Year website; the Ahuzat Bayit collection, which focuses on the founding families of Tel Aviv, and includes photographs and biographies; and Stanford University's Eliasaf Robinson Tel Aviv Collection, documenting the history of the city.

Geography

Tel Aviv is located around on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline, in central Israel, the historic land bridge between Europe, Asia and Africa. Immediately north of the ancient port of Jaffa, Tel Aviv lies on land that used to be sand dunes and as such has relatively poor soil fertility. The land has been flattened and has no important gradients; its most notable geographical features are bluffs above the Mediterranean coastline and the Yarkon River mouth. Because of the expansion of Tel Aviv and the Gush Dan region, absolute borders between Tel Aviv and Jaffa and between the city's neighborhoods do not exist. The city is located northwest of Jerusalem and south of the city of Haifa. Neighboring cities and towns include Herzliya to the north, Ramat HaSharon to the northeast, Petah Tikva, Bnei Brak, Ramat Gan and Giv'atayim to the east, Holon to the southeast, and Bat Yam to the south. The city is economically stratified between the north and south. Southern Tel Aviv is generally reputed to be poorer than Northern Tel Aviv with the exception of Neve Tzedek and some recent development on Jaffa beach. Central Tel Aviv is home to Azrieli Center and the important financial and commerce district along Ayalon Highway. The northern side of Tel Aviv is home to Tel Aviv University, Hayarkon Park, and upscale residential neighborhoods such as Ramat Aviv and Afeka.

Climate

Tel Aviv has a Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification Csb) with hot, humid summers, unpredictable springs and autumns, and cool, rainy winters. Humidity tends to be high year-round due to ocean breeze. In winter, average temperatures are usually between and , with temperatures as low as and as high as occurring several times a winter. The rainiest month on record was January 2000 with . The rainiest day on record was November 8, 1955 with . In summer, average temperatures are usually between and . Tel Aviv averages of precipitation annually, which mostly occurs in the months of October through April. Winter is the wettest season, often accompanied by heavy showers and thunderstorms. Snow is extremely rare, with the last recorded snowfall within city limits occurring in February 1950. Tel Aviv enjoys plenty of sunshine throughout the year with more than 300 sunny days annually.

Neighborhoods

Tel Aviv is divided into nine districts that have formed naturally over the city's short history. The oldest of these is Jaffa, the ancient port city out of which Tel Aviv grew. This area is traditionally made up demographically of a greater percentage of Arabs, but recent gentrification is replacing them with a young professional and artist population. Similar processes are occurring in nearby Neve Tzedek, the original Jewish neighborhood outside of Jaffa. Ramat Aviv, a district in the northern part of the city, that is largely made up of luxury apartments and includes the Tel Aviv University, is currently undergoing extensive expansion and is set to absorb the beachfront property of Sde Dov Airport after its decommissioning. The area known as HaKirya is the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) headquarters and a large military base.

Historically, there was a demographic split between the Ashkenazi northern side of the city, including the district of Ramat Aviv, and the southern, more Sephardi and Mizrahi neighborhoods including Neve Tzedek and Florentin.

Since the 1980s, restoration and gentrification have taken place on a large scale in the southern neighborhoods, making them some of the city’s most desirable neighborhoods for the more prosperous north Tel Avivis. According to his memoir, Baruch Yoscovitz, who was the city planner for Tel Aviv beginning in 2001, took old British plans from the 1920s that were never implemented for Florentine and modernized them. Yoscovitz set out to create green areas, which Florentine had none of, small pedestrian areas, new housing apartments, and have the city buy up land for public facilities. The City of Tel Aviv initially put 2 million Shekels into the Florentine Project. Yoscovitz goal was to make Florentine the Soho of Tel Aviv, and attract artists and young professionals. Florentine has quickly been reinvented as a hip, "cool" place to be in Tel Aviv with coffeehouses, markets, bars, galleries and parties.

Architecture

The early architecture of Tel Aviv consisted largely of European-style single-story houses with red-tiled roofs. Neve Tzedek, the first neighborhood to be constructed outside of Jaffa is characterised by two-story sandstone buildings. By the 1920s, a new eclectic Orientalist style came into vogue, combining European architecture with Eastern features such as arches, domes and ornamental tiles. Municipal construction followed the "garden city" master plan drawn up by Patrick Geddes. Two- and three-story buildings were interspersed with boulevards and public parks. Various architectural styles, such as Art Deco, classical and modernist also exist in Tel Aviv.

Bauhaus

Bauhaus architecture was introduced in the 1920s and 1930s by German Jewish architects who settled in Palestine after the rise of the Nazis. Tel Aviv's White City, around the city center, contains more than 5,000 Modernist-style buildings inspired by the Bauhaus school and Le Corbusier. Construction of these buildings, later declared protected landmarks and, collectively, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, continued until the 1950s in the area around Rothschild Boulevard. Some 3,000 buildings were created in this style between 1931 and 1939 alone. In the 1960s, this architectural style gave way to office towers and a chain of waterfront hotels and commercial skyscrapers. Some of the city's Modernist buildings were neglected to the point of ruin. Before legislation to preserve this landmark architecture, many of the old buildings were demolished. thumb|First International Bank Tower Efforts are under way to refurbish Bauhaus buildings and restore them to their original condition.

High-rise construction and towers

The Shalom Meir Tower, Israel's first skyscraper, was built in Tel Aviv in 1965 and remained the country's tallest building until 1999. The Azrieli Center, composed of three buildings— one square, one triangular, and one circular—usurped that title. Since 2001, Israel's tallest building is the City Gate Tower, which is located in the neighboring city of Ramat Gan, although the country's tallest wholly residential building, the W-Tower, is in Tel Aviv. New neighborhoods, such as Park Tzameret, are being constructed to house apartment towers such as YOO Tel Aviv towers, designed by Philippe Starck. Other districts, such as Sarona, are being developed with office towers. Other recent additions to Tel Aviv's skyline are the 1 Rothschild Tower and First International Bank Tower. As Tel Aviv celebrated its centennial in 2009, the city attracted a number of architects and developers, including I. M. Pei, Donald Trump, and Richard Meier. American journalist David Kaufman reported in New York magazine that since Tel Aviv “was named a UNESCO World Heritage site, gorgeous historic buildings from the Ottoman and Bauhaus era have been repurposed as fabulous hotels, eateries, boutiques, and design museums.”

Environmental campaigns and urban restoration

Tel Aviv is ranked as the greenest city in Israel. Since 2008, City lights are turned off annually in support of Earth Hour. In February 2009, the municipality launched a water saving campaign, including competition granting free parking for a year to the household that is found to have consumed the least amount of water per person. In the early 21st century, Tel Aviv's municipality transformed a derelict power station into a public park, now named "Gan HaHashmal" (electric park), paving the way for eco-friendly and environmentally conscious designs. In October 2008, Martin Weyl turned an old garbage dump near Ben Gurion International Airport, called Hiriya, into an attraction by building an arc of plastic bottles. The site, which was renamed Ariel Sharon Park to honor Israel’s former prime minister, will serve as the centerpiece in what is to become a urban wilderness on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, designed by German landscape architect, Peter Latz.

At the end of the 20th century, the city began restoring historical neighborhoods such as Neve Tzedek and many buildings from the 1920s and 1930s. Since 2007, the city hosts its well-known, annual Open House Tel Aviv weekend, which offers the general public free entrance to the city's famous landmarks, private houses and public buildings. In 2010, the design of the renovated Tel Aviv Port (''Nemal Tel Aviv'') won the award for outstanding landscape architecture at the European Biennial for Landscape Architecture in Barcelona.

Electric cars

In early 2008, Tel Aviv Municipality announced a pilot scheme to build charging stations for electric cars. Initially, five charging points will be built, and eventually 150 points will be set up across the city as part of the Israeli electric car project, Project Better Place. Battery replacement points will be located at the city's entrances. A visitor center of Better Place is located in northwestern entrance to the city at Pi-Glilot site.

Better Place's primary R&D; facility is in Tel Aviv and is headed by Lior Storfer.

Demographics

Tel Aviv has a population of 404,400 spread over a land area of (20 mi²), yielding a population density of 7,606 people per square kilometer (19,699 per square mile). According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), as of 2009 Tel Aviv's population is growing at an annual rate of 0.5%. Jews of all backgrounds form 91.8% of the population, Muslim and Arab Christians make up 4.2%, and the remainder belong to other groups (including various Christian and Asian communities). As Tel Aviv is a multicultural city, many languages are spoken in addition to Hebrew. According to some estimates, about 50,000 unregistered Asian foreign workers live in the city. Compared with Westernised cities, crime in Tel Aviv is relatively low. According to Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality, the average income in the city, which has an unemployment rate of 6.9%, is 20% above the national average. The city's education standards are above the national average: of its 12th-grade students, 64.4% are eligible for matriculation certificates. The age profile is relatively even, with 22.2% aged under 20, 18.5% aged 20–29, 24% aged 30–44, 16.2% aged between 45 and 59, and 19.1% older than 60.

Tel Aviv's population reached a peak in the early 1960s at around 390,000, falling to 317,000 in the late 1980s as high property prices forced families out and deterred young couples from moving in. Since the mass immigration from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s, population has steadily grown. Today, the city's population is young and growing. In 2006, 22,000 people moved to the city, while only 18,500 left, and many of the new families had young children. The population is expected to reach 450,000 by 2025; meanwhile, the average age of residents fell from 35.8 in 1983 to 34 in 2008. The population over age 65 stands at 14.6% compared with 19% in 1983.

Religion

The city has its fair share of houses of worship, including 544 active synagogues with daily prayers, including historic buildings such as the Great Synagogue, established in the 1930s. In 2008, a center for secular Jewish Studies and a secular yeshiva opened in the city. Tensions between religious and secular Jews before the gay pride parade ended in vandalism of a synagogue. One of the city's famous landmarks is the Hassan Bek Mosque, on the Tel Aviv beachfront. The number of churches has grown to accommodate the religious needs of diplomats and foreign workers.

The population consists of 93% Jewish, 1% Muslim, and 1% Christian. The remaining 5 percent are not classified by religion. Israel Meir Lau is chief rabbi of the city.

Economy

Tel Aviv was built on sand dunes in an area usuitable for farming, and maritime commerce was centered in Haifa and Ashdod. Instead, the city developed as a center of business and scientific research. Economic activities account for 17 percent of GDP. thumb|left|Tel Aviv Stock Exchange The city has been called a "flourishing technological center" by ''Newsweek'' and a "miniature Los Angeles" by ''The Economist''. In 1998, the city was described by Newsweek as one of the top 10 most technologically influential cities in the world. Since then, high-tech industry in the Tel Aviv area has continued to develop. The Tel Aviv metropolitan area (including satellite cities such as Herzliya and Petah Tikva) is Israel's center of high-tech, sometimes referred to as Silicon Wadi. Tel Aviv is home to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE), Israel's only stock exchange, which has reached record heights since the 1990s. The Tel Aviv Stock exchange has also gained attention for its resilience and ability to recover from war and disasters. For example, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange was higher on the last day of both the 2006 Lebanon war and the 2009 Operation in Gaza than on the first day of fighting Many international venture-capital firms, scientific research institutes and high-tech companies are headquartered in the city. Industries in Tel Aviv include chemical processing, textile plants and food manufacturers. The city's nightlife, cultural attractions and architecture attract tourists whose spending benefits the local economy.

In 2008, the Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) at Loughborough University reissued an inventory of world cities based on their level of advanced producer services. Tel Aviv was ranked as a beta+ world city.

According to Forbes, nine of its fifteen Israeli-born billionaires live in Israel; four live in Tel Aviv and its suburbs. The cost of living in Israel is high, with Tel Aviv being its most expensive city to live in. According to Mercer, a human resources consulting firm based in New York, as of 2010 Tel Aviv is the most expensive city in the Middle East and the 19th most expensive in the world.

Culture and contemporary life

Tourism

With 2.7 million international visitors annually, Tel Aviv is a popular tourism destination. It is known as "the city that never sleeps" and a "party capital" due to its thriving nightlife, young atmosphere and famous 24-hour culture. NBA player Anthony Parker called Tel Aviv the best basketball city to go out in. Tel Aviv has branches of some of the world's leading hotels, including the Crowne Plaza, Sheraton, Dan, Isrotel and Hilton. It is home to many museums, architectural and cultural sites, with city tours available in different languages. Apart from bus tours, architectural tours, Segway tours, and walking tours are also popular. Tel Aviv has 44 hotels with more than 6,500 rooms.

Recreation

The beaches of Tel Aviv play a major role in the cultural and touristic scene in the city, often ranked as some of the best beaches in the world. Hayarkon Park is the most visited urban park in Israel, with sixteen million visitors annually. Other parks within city limits include Charles Clore Park, Independence Park, Meir Park and Dubnow Park. About 19% of the city land are green spaces.

Cuisine

Tel Aviv is famous for its wide variety of world-class restaurants, offering traditional Israeli dishes as well as international fare. More than 100 sushi restaurants, the third highest concentration in the world, do business in the city, and an Italian restaurant in Tel Aviv was called the best Italian restaurant outside of Italy by the Italian Ministry of Agriculture.

LGBT culture

Named by ''Out Magazine'' "The gay capital of the Middle East", Tel Aviv is one of the most popular destinations for gay tourists internationally, with a large LGBT community. American journalist David Kaufman has described the city as a place “packed with the kind of ‘we're here, we're queer’ vibe more typically found in Sydney and San Francisco. The city hosts its well-known pride parade, the biggest in Asia, attracting over 100,000 people yearly. Early 2008 saw the city hosting Israel's first sex festival. In January 2008, Tel Aviv's municipality established the city's LGBT Community Center, providing all of the municipal and cultural services to the LGBT community under one roof. In December 2008, Tel Aviv began putting together a team of gay and lesbian athletes for the 2009 World Outgames in Copenhagen. In addition, Tel Aviv hosts an annual LGBT Film Festival.

Tel Aviv's LGBT community is the subject of Eytan Fox's 2006 film ''The Bubble.

Fashion

Tel Aviv has become an international center of fashion and design. It has been called the “next hot destination” for fashion. Israeli designers, such as swimwear company Gottex show their collections at leading fashion shows, including New York’s Bryant Park fashion show.

Entertainment and performing arts

Tel Aviv is Israel's major center of culture and entertainment. Eighteen of Israel's 35 major centers for the performing arts are located in the city, including five of the country's nine large theaters, where 55% of all performances in the country and 75% of all attendance occurs. The Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center is the home of the Israeli Opera, where Plácido Domingo was house tenor between 1962 and 1965, and the Cameri Theater. With 2,760 seats, the Frederic R. Mann Auditorium (''Culture Palace'') is the city's largest theater. Habima Theater, Israel's national theater, was closed down for renovations in early 2008. Enav Cultural Center is one of the newer additions to the cultural scene. Other theaters in Tel Aviv are the Gesher Theater and Beit Lessin Theater; Tzavta and Tmuna are smaller theaters that host musical performances and fringe productions. In Jaffa, the Simta and Notzar theaters specialize in fringe as well. Tel Aviv is home to the Batsheva Dance Company, a contemporary dance troupe, as well as Bat Dor. The Israeli Ballet is also based in Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv's center for modern and classical dance is the Suzanne Dellal Center for Dance and Theater in Neve Tzedek.

The city often hosts both international and local pop and rock concerts in venues such as Hayarkon Park, the Israel Trade Fairs & Convention Center, the Barby Club and the Zappa Club.

Opera and classical music performances are held daily in Tel Aviv, with many of the world's leading classical conductors and soloists performing on Tel Aviv stages over the years.

The Tel Aviv Cinemathèque screens art movies, premieres of short and full-length Israeli films, and hosts a variety of film festivals, among them the Festival of Animation, Comics and Caricatures, the Student Film Festival, the Jazz, Film and Videotape Festival and Salute to Israeli Cinema. The city has several multiplex cinemas.

Tel Aviv is known internationally for its highly active and diverse nightlife with bars staying open well past midnight and nightclubs and dance bars holding parties most nights of the week. The largest concentration of nightclubs is in the Tel Aviv port area, where the city's large, commercial clubs and bars draw large crowds of young clubbers from Tel Aviv and beyond. The TLV club is the largest and often hosts big name international acts and DJs. Another major clubbing area is the Yad Harutsim area, near the old central bus station area of town. The South of Tel Aviv is known as being the city's main hub of alternative clubbing, with underground venues including established clubs like the Block club, Comfort 13 and the Sublime, as well as various warehouse and loft party venues.

Museums

Israel is said to have the highest number of museums per capita of any country, with three of the largest located in Tel Aviv. Among these are the Eretz Israel Museum, known for its collection of archaeology and history exhibits dealing with the Land of Israel, and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Housed on the campus of Tel Aviv University is Beth Hatefutsoth, a museum of the international Jewish diaspora that tells the story of Jewish prosperity and persecution throughout the centuries of exile. Batey Haosef Museum specializes in Israel Defense Forces military history. The Palmach Museum near Tel Aviv University offers a multimedia experience of the history of the Palmach. Right next to Charles Clore Park is a museum of the Etzel. The Israel Trade Fairs & Convention Center, located in the northern part of the city, hosts more than 60 major events annually. Many offbeat museums and galleries operate in the southern areas, including the Tel Aviv Raw Art contemporary art gallery.

Sports

Tel Aviv is the only city with three clubs in Israeli Premier League, the country's top football league. Maccabi Tel Aviv Sports Club was founded in 1906 and competes in more than 10 sport fields. Its basketball team, Maccabi Tel Aviv, is a world-known professional team, that holds 47 Israeli titles, has won 36 editions of the Israel cup, and has five European Championships, and its football team has won 18 Israeli league titles and has won 22 State Cups, two Toto Cups and two Asian Club Championships. Yael Arad, an athlete in Maccabi's judo club, won a silver medal in the 1992 Olympic Games.

Hapoel Tel Aviv Sports Club, founded in 1923, comprises more than 11 sports clubs, including Hapoel Tel Aviv Football Club (13 championships, 11 State Cups, one Toto Cup and once Asian champions) which plays in Bloomfield Stadium, men's and women's basketball clubs.

Bnei Yehuda (once Israeli champion, twice State Cup winners and twice Toto Cup winner) is the only Israeli football team in the top division that represents a neighborhood, the Hatikva Quarter in Tel Aviv, and not a city.

Shimshon Tel Aviv and Beitar Tel Aviv both formerly played in the top division, but dropped into the lower leagues, and merged in 2000, the new club now playing in Liga Artzit, the third tier. Another former first division team, Maccabi Jaffa, is now defunct, as are Maccabi HaTzefon Tel Aviv, Hapoel HaTzefon Tel Aviv and Hakoah Tel Aviv, who merged with Maccabi Ramat Gan and moved to Ramat Gan in 1959.

Tel Aviv is also the home to Hapoel Ussishkin, a fan-owned basketball club founded in 2007 due to disagreements between the Hapoel Tel Aviv basketball club's management and the fans.

Two rowing clubs operate in Tel Aviv. The Tel Aviv Rowing Club, established in 1935 on the banks of the Yarkon River, is the largest rowing club in Israel. Meanwhile, the beaches of Tel Aviv provide a vibrant Matkot (beach paddleball) scene. Tel Aviv Lightning represent Tel Aviv in the Israel Baseball League. Tel Aviv also has an annual half marathon, run in 2008 by 10,000 athletes with runners coming from around the world.

In 2009, the Tel Aviv Marathon was revived after a fifteen-year hiatus, and is run annually since, attracting a field of over 18,000 runners.

The National Sport Center is a compound of stadiums and sports facilities, also located within the Olympic Committee of Israel center and the "National Athletics Stadium" with the Israeli Athletic Association. Adjacent is a multi-purpose sports hall with the Israeli judo association and several Israeli sports associations.

Media

The three largest newspaper companies in Israel - Yedioth Ahronoth, Maariv and Haaretz - are all based within the city limits. Several radio stations cover the Tel Aviv area, including the city-based Radio Tel Aviv. The three major Israeli television networks, Keshet, Reshet, and Channel 10, are based in the city, as well as two of the most popular radio stations in Israel: Galatz and Galgalatz, which are both based in Jaffa.

Local government

Tel Aviv is governed by a 31-member city council elected for a five-year term in direct proportional elections. All Israeli citizens over the age of 18 with at least one year of residence in Tel Aviv are eligible to vote in municipal elections. The municipality is responsible for social services, community programs, public infrastructure, urban planning, tourism and other local affairs. The Tel Aviv City Hall is located at Rabin Square. Ron Huldai has been mayor of Tel Aviv since 1998. Huldai was reelected in the 2008 municipal elections, defeating Dov Henin's list. The longest serving mayor was Shlomo Lahat, who was in office for 19 years. The shortest serving was David Bloch, in office for two years, 1925–27.

The demographic split in the city created political divisions between the Labor Party, usually strongest in the north, and Likud and other right-wing and religious parties, usually strongest in the south. In the 2006 election, however this pattern changed when the new centrist Kadima party gained 28 percent of the city's vote, followed by Labor with 20 percent. While much of the country leaned right ahead of the 2009 Knesset elections in Israel, 34% of the Tel Aviv electorate voted for Kadima. Outside the kibbutzim, Meretz receives more votes in Tel Aviv than in any other city in Israel.

Mayors

{|class="wikitable" |+ Mayors of Tel Aviv ! ! Name ! Took office ! Left office |- |1 |Meir Dizengoff |1921 |1925 |- |2 |David Bloch |1925 |1927 |- |3 |Meir Dizengoff |1928 |1936 |- |4 |Israel Rokach |1936 |1952 |- |5 |Haim Levanon |1953 |1959 |- |6 |Mordechai Namir |1959 |1969 |- |7 |Yehoshua Rabinowitz |1969 |1974 |- |8 |Shlomo Lahat ("Chich") |1974 |1993 |- |9 |Roni Milo |1993 |1998 |- |10 |Ron Huldai |1998 | |}

Education

Tel Aviv is home to a significant number of schools, colleges and universities. As of 2006, 51,359 children attended school in Tel Aviv, of whom 8,977 were in municipal kindergartens, 23,573 in municipal elementary schools, and 18,809 in high schools. Sixty-four percent of students in the city are entitled to matriculation, more than 5 percent higher than the national average. About 4,000 children are in first grade at schools in the city, and population growth is expected to raise this number to 6,000 by 2012. As a result, 20 additional kindergarten classes were opened in 2008–09 in the city, while additional classes will be added at schools in northern Tel Aviv. A new elementary school is planned north of Sde Dov as well as a new high school in northern Tel Aviv.

Tel Aviv's major institution for higher education is Tel Aviv University. It is the largest university in Israel, known internationally for its physics, computer science, chemistry and linguistics departments. Together with Bar-Ilan University in neighboring Ramat Gan, the student population numbers over 50,000, including a sizeable international community. Its campus is located in the neighborhood of Ramat Aviv. Tel Aviv also has several colleges.

The Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium moved from Jaffa to Tel Aviv in 1909. The school continues to operate, although it has moved to Jabotinsky Street. Other notable schools in Tel Aviv include Shevah Mofet, the second Hebrew school in the city, Ironi Alef High School for Arts and Alliance.

Transportation

Tel Aviv is a major transportation hub, served by a comprehensive public transport network, with many major routes of the national transportation network running through the city.

Bus and taxi

As with the rest of Israel, bus transport is the most common form of public transport and is very widely used. The Tel Aviv Central Bus Station is located in the southern part of the city.The main bus network in Tel Aviv metropolitan area operated by Dan Bus Company, metropoline and kavim. the Egged Bus Cooperative, the world's second-largest bus company, provides intercity transportation.

The city is also served by local and inter-city share taxis. Many local and inter-city bus routes also have sherut taxis that follow the same route and display the same route number in their window. Fares are standardised within the region and are comparable to or less expensive than bus fares. Unlike other forms of public transport, these taxis also operate on Fridays and Saturdays (the Jewish sabbath "Shabbat"). Private taxis are white with a yellow sign on top. Fares are standardised and metered, but may be negotiated ahead of time with the driver.

Rail

The Tel Aviv Central train station is the main train station of the city, and the busiest station in Israel. The city has three additional train stations along the Ayalon Highway: The Tel Aviv University, HaShalom (adjacent to Azrieli Center) and HaHagana (near the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station). It is estimated that over a million passengers travel by train to Tel Aviv monthly. The trains do not run on Saturday and holidays.

Roads

The main highway leading to the city is the Ayalon Highway (Highway 20), which runs along the eastern side of the city from north to south along the Ayalon River riverbed, dividing for the most part Tel Aviv and Ramat Gan. Driving south on the Ayalon gives access to Highway 1, leading to Ben Gurion International Airport and Jerusalem. Within the city, main routes include Kaplan Street, Allenby Street, Ibn Gabirol Street, Dizengoff Street, Rothschild Boulevard, and in Jaffa the main route is Jerusalem Boulevard. Namir Road connects the city to Highway 2, Israel's main north–south highway, and Begin/Jabotinsky Road, which provides access from the east through Ramat Gan, Bnei Brak and Petah Tikva. Tel Aviv, accommodating about 500,000 commuter cars daily, suffers from increasing congestion. In 2007, the Sadan Report recommended the introduction of a congestion charge similar to that of London in Tel Aviv as well as other Israeli cities. Under this plan, road users traveling into the city would pay a fixed fee.

The Tel Aviv Municipality encourages the use of bicycles in the city, with a bicycle sharing system planned to start working in April 2011 to serve of bicycle lanes. The bicycle route network has grown substantially in recent years.

Air

The main airport serving Tel Aviv is Ben Gurion International Airport (IATA: TLV). Located in the neighboring city of Lod, it is the main airport of Israel, handling over 12 million passengers in 2010. The airport serves both international flights and domestic flights, and is the main hub of El Al, Arkia Israel Airlines, Israir Airlines and Sun D'Or International Airlines. The airport is southeast of Tel Aviv, on Highway 1 between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. It is often rated as the best airport in the Middle East. Another airport in the Tel Aviv area, Sde Dov (IATA: SDV), in northwestern Tel Aviv, serves mainly domestic flights and may be closed in favor of real-estate development. In the future all services to Sde Dov will be transferred to Ben Gurion Airport.

Light rail

The first line of a light rail system is under construction and scheduled to open in 2016. The Red Line starts at Petah Tikva's Central Bus Station, east of Tel Aviv and follows the Jabotinsky Road (Route 481) westwards at street level. At the point were Jabotinsky Road and Highway 4 intersect the line drops into an underground tunnel for through Bnei Brak, Ramat Gan and Tel Aviv and emerges again to street level just before Jaffa, were it turns southwards towards Bat Yam. The underground section will include 10 stations, including an interchange with Israel Railways services at Tel Aviv Central Railway Station and the nearby 2000 Terminal. A maintenance depot, connected via a branch line and tunnel to the main section of the line, will be constructed in Kiryat Arye, across from the existing Kiryat Arye suburban railway station. The owner of the first line, MTS, has had financial difficulties that postponed the line's opening. In May 2010, the ministry of finance decided to cancel the agreement with MTS due to the difficulties and the agreement cancelled in August 2010. The first opening target was 2012 and today the target is 2016 after several postponements.

Bicycle sharing system

In April 2011, Tel Aviv municipality launched a bicycle sharing system, in which 150 stations of bicycles for rent were installed within the city limits.

Twin towns — sister cities

Tel Aviv has a partnership with Los Angeles, and is twinned with:

{|style="width:100%" |- | style="width:33.3%;"| San Salvador, El Salvador Mexico City, Mexico Freiburg, Germany Toulouse, France, since 1962 Philadelphia, United States, since 1967 Cologne, Germany, since 1979 Frankfurt, Germany, since 1980 Bonn, Germany, since 1983 Buenos Aires, Argentina, since 1988 Budapest, Hungary, since 1989 Belgrade, Serbia, since 1990 Warsaw, Poland, since 1992 Essen, Germany, since 1992 | style="width:33.3%;"| Sofia, Bulgaria, since 1992 Cannes, France, since 1993 Łódź, Poland, since 1994 Milan, Italy, since 1994 Thessaloniki, Greece, since 1994 Beijing, China, since 1995 New York City, United States, since 1996 Barcelona, Spain, since 1998 | style="width:33.3%;"| Izmir, Turkey, since 1998 Gaza, Palestinian Authority, since 1998 Note: Suspended by Tel Aviv in 2008 Almaty, Kazakhstan, since 1999 Chişinău, Moldova, since 2000 Incheon, South Korea, since 2000 Limassol, Cyprus, since 2000 Moscow, Russia, since 2000 São Paulo, Brazil, since 2004 Vienna, Austria, since 2005 Paris, France since 2010 Ottawa, Canada since 2011 |}

See also

White City (Tel Aviv)

Tel Aviv Port

Jaffa Port

Kiryat Atidim

References

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=FB061FFE385F1B7A93C1A9178DD85F438185F9

Bibliography

Michael Turner, Catherine Weill-Rochant, Geneviève Blondiau, Silvina Sosnovsky, Philippe Brandeis, ''Sur les traces du modernisme, Tel-Aviv-Haïfa-Jérusalem'', CIVA (ed.), Bruxelles 2004. (Hebrew and French)

Catherine Weill-Rochant, ''L'Atlas de Tel-Aviv 1908-2008'', Paris, CNRS Editions, 2008. (Historical maps and photos, French, soon in Hebrew and English)

Catherine Weill-Rochant, ''Bauhaus » - Architektur in Tel-Aviv, L’architecture « Bauhaus » à Tel- Aviv'', Rita Gans (éd.), Zurich, Yad Yearim, 2008. (German and French)

Catherine Weill-Rochant, 'The Tel-Aviv School : a constrained rationalism', ''DOCOMOMO journal'' (Documentation and conservation of buildings, sites and neighbourhoods of the modern movement), April 2009.

And:

Catherine Weill-Rochant, ''Le travail de Patrick Geddes à Tel-Aviv, un plan d'ombre et de lumière'', Saarbrücken, ةditions Universitaires Européennes, May 2010.

External links

Boutique Hotels in tel Aviv

The official Tel Aviv municipality website

The official Tel Aviv municipality website The official Tel Aviv municipality website The History of Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv official tourism website

The Tel Aviv Foundation

The Gay Guide to Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv beach guide

8 days forecast in Tel Aviv

Category:Jewish villages in the Ottoman Empire

af:Tel Aviv am:ቴል አቪቭ ar:تل أبيب arc:ܬܠ ܐܒܝܒ az:Təl Əviv bn:তেল আভিভ be:Горад Тэль-Авіў be-x-old:Тэль-Авіў bcl:Tel Aviv bar:Tel Aviv bs:Tel Aviv br:Tel Aviv bg:Тел Авив ca:Tel Aviv cs:Tel Aviv cy:Tel Aviv da:Tel Aviv de:Tel Aviv-Jaffa et:Tel Aviv el:Τελ Αβίβ es:Tel Aviv eo:Tel-Avivo eu:Tel Aviv fa:تل‌آویو fr:Tel Aviv-Jaffa fy:Tel Aviv gl:Tel Aviv ko:텔아비브 hy:Թել Ավիվ hr:Tel Aviv io:Tel Aviv id:Tel Aviv os:Тель-Авив is:Tel Avív it:Tel Aviv he:תל אביב-יפו jv:Tel Aviv kl:Tel Aviv ka:თელ-ავივი rw:Tel Aviv sw:Tel Aviv lad:Tel Aviv la:Telavivum lv:Telaviva lb:Tel Aviv lt:Tel Avivas lmo:Tel Aviv hu:Tel-Aviv mk:Тел Авив ml:ടെൽ അവീവ് mr:तेल अवीव arz:تل ابيب ms:Tel Aviv mn:Тел-Авив nah:Tel Aviv nl:Tel Aviv ja:テルアビブ no:Tel Aviv nn:Tel Aviv oc:Tel Aviv pl:Tel Awiw-Jafa pt:Tel Aviv ro:Tel Aviv ru:Тель-Авив sc:Tel Aviv sco:Tel Aviv stq:Tel Aviv scn:Tel Aviv simple:Tel Aviv sk:Tel Aviv sl:Tel Aviv ckb:تێل ئاڤیڤ sr:Тел Авив fi:Tel Aviv sv:Tel Aviv tl:Tel-Abib ta:டெல் அவீவ் kab:Tel Aviv th:เทลอาวีฟ tr:Tel Aviv uk:Тель-Авів ur:تل ابیب ug:تېلاۋىف vi:Tel Aviv war:Tel Aviv yi:תל אביב-יפו bat-smg:Tel Avėvs zh:特拉维夫

Name	Roberto Cavalli
Nationality	Italian
Birth date	November 15, 1940
Birth place	Florence, Italy
Label name	Cavalli

Roberto Cavalli () (born 15 November 1940) is an Italian fashion designer from Florence.

Biography

Roberto Cavalli was born in Florence, Tuscany. His grandfather, Giuseppe Rossi, was a member of the Macchiaioli Movement, whose work is exhibited in the Uffizi Gallery. Cavalli decided to enroll at the local Art Institute, concentrating in textile print. While still a student, he made a series of flower prints on knit that caught the attention of major Italian hosiery factories.

In the early 1970s, he invented and patented a revolutionary printing procedure on leather, and he started creating patchworks of different materials. He debuted these techniques in Paris, immediately getting commissions from the likes of Hermès and Pierre Cardin. At age 30, he presented his first namesake collection at the Salon for Prêt-à-Porter in Paris. He brought it to the catwalks of the Sala Bianca of Palazzo Pitti in Florence, and later on those of Milano Collezioni jeans made of printed denim, intarsia leathers, brocade and wild prints. He then opened his first boutique in 1972 in Saint-Tropez.

In 1980 Roberto Cavalli married Eva Düringer, who has been his lifelong companion and business partner. In Milan in 1994 Cavalli presented the first sand-blasted jeans. By December of the same year, he had opened boutiques in Saint Barth, in the French Caribbean, followed by others in Venice and Saint-Tropez. Besides the main line, which is sold in over fifty countries worldwide, Roberto Cavalli designs RC Menswear as well as the youth aimed line Just Cavalli, launched in 1998 and comprising today men’s wear, women’s wear and accessories, eyewear, watches, perfumes, underwear and beachwear. There is also the Angels & Devils Children Collection, the Class line, two underwear collections, shoes, eyewear, watches and perfumes. In 2002 Cavalli opened his first café-store in Florence, revamping it with his signature animal prints. This was shortly followed by the opening in Milan of the Just Cavalli café at Torre Branca and another boutique on Via della Spiga.

It was reported in April 2008 that Cavalli had put his business up for sale. Roberto Cavalli was a judge at the Miss Universe 1977 pageant where his future wife ( Eva Duringer) was a contestant. He did not pick her to win. She was first runner-up. The girl that won was the first Black Miss Universe. In July 2011 his company collection was presented at the catwalk of The Brandery fashion show in Barcelona.

Criticism

Cavalli was sharply criticized in 2004 by the Hindu community for marketing a line of feminine underwear (designed for Harrods) which featured the images of Hindu goddesses. The line was eventually withdrawn and formal apologies were made.

On June 26, 2010 Roberto Cavalli went to Chechnya (Republic of Russian Federation whose leaders demand Sharia Law on its territory) to use his mighty weight in the world of fashion to legitimize following: •All women if working for government must cover their heads with scarves. •All private owners of wedding gown shops were STRONGLY RECOMMENDED to replace all European designs with traditional ones. http://media.ntv.ru/news/20091006/TV_CH6_1006_1859_DADAEVA_T203.mp4

Companies

JUST CAVALLI

JUST CAVALLI UNDERWEAR & BEACHWEAR

ROBERTO CAVALLI UNDERWEAR

CLASS ROBERTO CAVALLI

ROBERTO CAVALLI nACCESSORI

ROBERTO CAVALLI ANGELS e ROBERTO CAVALLI DEVILS

ROBERTO CAVALLI NEONATO

ROBERTO CAVALLI ANGELS SHOES e ROBERTO CAVALLI DEVILS SHOES

ROBERTO CAVALLI and JUST CAVALLI EYEWEAR

ROBERTO CAVALLI TIMEWEAR

JUST CAVALLI TIME

ROBERTO CAVALLI e JUST CAVALLI PROFUMI

ROBERTO CAVALLI VODKA

J U S T C A V A L L I C L U B

J U S T C A V A L L I C A F F E’

CAFFE’ GIACOSA

References

''Press Office Roberto Cavalli'' Piazza San Babila 3, Milan +39027630371

External links

RobertoCavalli.it - Official website

- Official Facebook Fan Page

RobertoCavalliBlog.com - Official blog

Roberto Cavalli in fashion art film by Imagine Fashion

Roberto Cavalli interview by VOGUE.COM

Category:1940 births Category:Living people Category:Italian fashion designers Category:High fashion brands Category:Businesspeople in fashion Category:Italian brands Category:Clothing companies of Italy Category:Luxury brands Category:Clothing brands Category:Companies established in 1970 Category:People from Florence

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