Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv תל אביב ( Tel Aviv promenade Rabin Square and City Hall Tel Aviv Museum of Art Old Jaffa and Jaffa Port
UTC+3 (IDT)
Postal code	61XXXXX
Area code	+972-3
ISO 3166 code	IL-TA
Website	tel-aviv.gov.il
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Official name	White City of Tel Aviv
Type	Cultural
Criteria	ii, iv
Designated	2003
Reference no.	[1]
Region	Israel

Tel Aviv-Yafo (

Tel Aviv is governed by the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality, headed by Mayor Ron Huldai, and is home to most of Israel's foreign embassies.^[b] It is a beta+ world city and is ranked 57th in the 2022 Global Financial Centres Index. Tel Aviv has the third- or fourth-largest economy and the largest economy per capita in the Middle East.^[11][12] The city currently has the highest cost of living in the world.^[13][14] Tel Aviv receives over 2.5 million international visitors annually.^[15][16] A "party capital" in the Middle East, it has a lively nightlife and 24-hour culture.^[17][18] The city is gay-friendly, with a large LGBT community.^[19] 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

Tel Aviv is the Hebrew title of

Although founded in 1909 as a small settlement on the sand dunes north of Jaffa, Tel Aviv was envisaged as a future city from the start. Its founders hoped that in contrast to what they perceived as the squalid and unsanitary conditions of neighbouring Arab towns, Tel Aviv was to be a clean and modern city, inspired by the European cities of Warsaw and Odesa.^[29] The marketing pamphlets advocating for its establishment stated:^[29]

In this city we will build the streets so they have roads and sidewalks and electric lights. Every house will have water from wells that will flow through pipes as in every modern European city, and also sewerage pipes will be installed for the health of the city and its residents.

— Akiva Arieh Weiss, 1906

History

Jaffa

The

Other ancient sites in Tel Aviv include: Tell Qasile, Tel Gerisa, Abattoir Hill, Tel Hashash, and Tell Qudadi.

During the

The Second Aliyah led to further expansion. In 1906, a group of Jews, among them residents of Jaffa, followed the initiative of Akiva Aryeh Weiss and banded together to form the Ahuzat Bayit (lit. "homestead") society. One of the society's goals was to form a "Hebrew urban centre in a healthy environment, planned according to the rules of aesthetics and modern hygiene".^[32] The urban planning for the new city was influenced by the garden city movement.^[33] The first 60 plots were purchased in Kerem Djebali near Jaffa by Jacobus Kann, a Dutch citizen, who registered them in his name to circumvent the Turkish prohibition on Jewish land acquisition.^[34] Meir Dizengoff, later Tel Aviv's first mayor, also joined the Ahuzat Bayit society.^[35][36] His vision for Tel Aviv involved peaceful co-existence with Arabs.^{[37][unreliable source]}

On 11 April 1909, 66 Jewish families gathered on a desolate sand dune to parcel out the land by lottery using seashells. This gathering is considered the official date of the establishment of Tel Aviv. The lottery was organised by

The town had rapidly become an attraction to immigrants, with a local activist writing:[45]

The immigrants were attracted to Tel Aviv because they found in it all the comforts they were used to in Europe: electric light, water, a little cleanliness, cinema, opera, theatre, and also more or less advanced schools... busy streets, full restaurants, cafes open until 2 a.m., singing, music, and dancing.

British administration (1917–1934)

A master plan for the Tel Aviv township was created by Patrick Geddes, 1925, based on the garden city movement.^[46] The plan consisted of four main features: a hierarchical system of streets laid out in a grid, large blocks consisting of small-scale domestic dwellings, the organization of these blocks around central open spaces, and the concentration of cultural institutions to form a civic center.^[47]

Tel Aviv, along with the rest of the Jaffa municipality, was conquered by the

Tel Aviv, established as suburb of Jaffa, received "township" or local council status within the Jaffa Municipality in 1921.[48]^[23][24] According to a census conducted in 1922 by the British Mandate authorities, Tel Aviv had a population of 15,185 (15,065 Jews, 78 Muslims and 42 Christians).^[49] The population of Tel Aviv had increased to around 34,000 by 1925.^[27][50] The 1931 census recorded Tel Aviv as having a population of 46,101 (45,564 Jews, 288 with no religion, 143 Christians, and 106 Muslims) in 12,545 houses.^[51]

With increasing Jewish immigration during the British administration, friction between Arabs and Jews in Palestine increased. On 1 May 1921, the Jaffa riots resulted in the deaths of 48 Arabs and 47 Jews and injuries to 146 Jews and 73 Arabs.^[52] In the wake of this violence, many Jews left Jaffa for Tel Aviv.

Tel Aviv began to develop as a commercial center.^[53] In 1923, Tel Aviv was the first town to be wired to electricity in Palestine, followed by Jaffa later in the same year. The opening ceremony of the Jaffa Electric Company powerhouse, on 10 June 1923, celebrated the lighting of the two main streets of Tel Aviv.^[54]

In 1925, the Scottish biologist, sociologist, philanthropist and pioneering town planner Patrick Geddes drew up a master plan for Tel Aviv which was adopted by the city council led by Meir Dizengoff. Geddes's plan for developing the northern part of the district was based on Ebenezer Howard's garden city movement.^[46] While most of the northern area of Tel Aviv was built according to this plan, the influx of European refugees in the 1930s necessitated the construction of taller apartment buildings on a larger footprint in the city.^[55]

Tel Aviv was granted the status of an independent municipality separate from Jaffa in 1934.

The village statistics of 1945 listed Tel Aviv's population as 166,660, consisting of 166,000 Jews, 300 "other", 230 Christians, and 130 Muslims.^[60]

During the

After Israel

In the 1960s, some of the older buildings were demolished, making way for the country's first high-rises. The historic Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium was controversially demolished, to make way for the Shalom Meir Tower, which was completed in 1965, and remained 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.^[64] By the early 1970s, Tel Aviv had entered a long and steady period of continuous population decline, which was accompanied by urban decay. By 1981, Tel Aviv had entered not just natural population decline, but an absolute population decline as well.^[65] In the late 1980s the city had an aging population of 317,000.^[64] Construction activity had moved away from the inner ring of Tel Aviv, and had moved to its outer perimeter and adjoining cities. A mass out-migration of residents from Tel Aviv, to adjoining cities like Petah Tikva and Rehovot, where better housing conditions were available, was underway by the beginning of the 1970s, and only accelerated by the Yom Kippur War.^[65] Cramped housing conditions and high property prices pushed families out of Tel Aviv and deterred young people from moving in.^[64] From the beginning of 1970s, the common image of Tel Aviv became that of a decaying city,^[66] as Tel Aviv's population fell 20%.^[67]

In the 1970s, the apparent sense of Tel Aviv's urban decline became a theme in the work of novelists such as

In the early 1980s, 13 embassies in Jerusalem moved to Tel Aviv as part of the

Since the First Intifada, Tel Aviv has suffered from Palestinian political violence. The first suicide attack in Tel Aviv occurred on 19 October 1994, on the Line 5 bus, when a bomber killed 22 civilians and injured 50 as part of a Hamas suicide campaign.^[78] On 6 March 1996, another Hamas suicide bomber killed 13 people (12 civilians and 1 soldier), many of them children, in the Dizengoff Center suicide bombing.^[79][80] Three women were killed by a Hamas terrorist in the Café Apropo bombing on 27 March 1997.^[81][82][83]

One of the deadliest attacks occurred on 1 June 2001, during the

Another attack took place on 29 August 2011 in which a Palestinian attacker stole an Israeli taxi cab and rammed it into a police checkpoint guarding the popular Haoman 17 nightclub in Tel Aviv which was filled with 2,000^[98] Israeli teenagers. After crashing, the assailant went on a stabbing spree, injuring eight people.^[96] Due to an Israel Border Police roadblock at the entrance and immediate response of the Border Police team during the subsequent stabbings, a much larger and fatal mass-casualty incident was avoided.^[99]

On 21 November 2012, during

New laws were introduced to protect Modernist buildings, and efforts to preserve them were aided by UNESCO recognition of Tel Aviv's White City as a world heritage site in 2003. In the early 2000s, Tel Aviv municipality focused on attracting more young residents to the city. It made significant investment in major boulevards, to create attractive pedestrian corridors. Former industrial areas like the city's previously derelict Northern Tel Aviv Port and the Jaffa railway station, were upgraded and transformed into leisure areas. A process of gentrification began in some of the poor neighborhoods of southern Tel Aviv and many older buildings began to be renovated.^[37]

The demographic profile of the city changed in the 2000s, as it began to attract a higher proportion of young residents. By 2012, 28 percent of the city's population was aged between 20 and 34 years old. Between 2007 and 2012, the city's population growth averaged 6.29 percent. As a result of its population recovery and industrial transition, the city's finances were transformed, and by 2012 it was running a budget surplus and maintained a credit rating of AAA+.

Tel Aviv is located around 32°5′N 34°48′E / 32.083°N 34.800°E / 32.083; 34.800 on the

Tel Aviv is ranked as the greenest city in Israel.^[117] Since 2008, city lights are turned off annually in support of Earth Hour.^[118] 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 water per person.^[119]

In the early 21st century, Tel Aviv's municipality transformed a derelict

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.^[122]

In 2014, the Sarona Market Complex opened, following an 8-year renovation project of Sarona colony.^[123]

Yarkon Park from Kiryat Atidim to the Mediterranean Sea

Climate

Tel Aviv has a Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification: Csa),^[124] and enjoys plenty of sunshine throughout the year. Most precipitation falls in the form of rain between the months of October and April, with intervening dry summers, and there is almost no rainfall from June to September. The average annual temperature is 20.9 °C (69.6 °F), and the average sea temperature is 18–20 °C (64–68 °F) during the winter, and 24–29 °C (75–84 °F) during the summer. The city averages 528 mm (20.8 in) of precipitation annually.

Summers in Tel Aviv last about five months, from June to October. August, the warmest month, averages a high of 30.6 °C (87.1 °F), and a low of 25 °C (77 °F). The high relative humidity due to the location of the city by the Mediterranean Sea, in a combination with the high temperatures, creates a thermal discomfort during the summer. Summer low temperatures in Tel Aviv seldom drop below 20 °C (68 °F).

Winters are mild and wet, with most of the annual precipitation falling within the months of December, January and February as intense rainfall and thunderstorms. In January, the coolest month, the average maximum temperature is 17.6 °C (63.7 °F), the minimum temperature averages 10.2 °C (50.4 °F). During the coldest days of winter, temperatures may vary between 8 °C (46 °F) and 12 °C (54 °F). Both freezing temperatures and snowfall are extremely rare in the city.

Autumns and springs are characterized by sharp temperature changes, with heat waves that might be created due to hot and dry air masses that arrive from the nearby deserts. During heatwaves in autumn and springs, temperatures usually climb up to 35 °C (95 °F) and even up to 40 °C (104 °F), accompanied with exceptionally low humidity. An average day during autumn and spring has a high of 23 °C (73 °F) to 25 °C (77 °F), and a low of 15 °C (59 °F) to 18 °C (64 °F).

The highest recorded temperature in Tel Aviv was 46.5 °C (115.7 °F) on 17 May 1916, and the lowest is −1.9 °C (28.6 °F) on 7 February 1950, during a cold wave that brought the only recorded snowfall in Tel Aviv.

Government

Tel Aviv is governed by a 31-member city council elected for a five-year term by in direct proportional elections,

Politically, Tel Aviv is known to be a stronghold for the left, in both local and national issues. The left wing vote is especially prevalent in the city's mostly affluent central and northern neighborhoods, though not the case for its working-class southeastern neighborhoods which tend to vote for right wing parties in national elections.[139] Outside the kibbutzim, Meretz receives more votes in Tel Aviv than in any other city in Israel.^[140]

Demographics

Tel Aviv has a population of 474,530 spread over a land area of 52,000 dunams (52 km²; 20 sq mi),^[2] yielding a population density of 7,606 people per square km (19,699 per square mile). According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), as of 2009^[update] Tel Aviv's population was growing at an annual rate of 0.5 percent. Jews of all backgrounds formed 91.8 percent of the population, Muslims and Arab Christians made up 4.2 percent, and the remainder belonged to other groups (including various Christian and Asian communities).^[141] As Tel Aviv is a multicultural city, many languages are spoken in addition to Hebrew. According to some estimates, about 50,000 unregistered African and Asian foreign workers live in the city.^[142] Compared with Westernised cities, crime in Tel Aviv is relatively low.^[143]

According to Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality, the average income in the city, which had an

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.[64] Since the 1990s, population has steadily grown.^[64] Today, the city's population is young and growing.^[147] In 2006, 22,000 people moved to the city, while only 18,500 left,^[147] and many of the new families had young children. The population is expected to reach 535,000 in 2030;^[148] meanwhile, the average age of residents fell from 35.8 in 1983 to 34 in 2008.^[147] The population over age 65 stands at 14.6 percent compared with 19% in 1983.^[147]

Religion

Tel Aviv has 544 active synagogues,

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

Since the 1980s, major restoration and gentrification projects have been implemented in southern Tel Aviv.[37]^{[unreliable source]} Baruch Yoscovitz, city planner for Tel Aviv beginning in 2001, reworked old British plans for the Florentin neighborhood from the 1920s, adding green areas, pedestrian malls, and housing. The municipality invested two million shekels in the project. The goal was to make Florentin the Soho of Tel Aviv, and attract artists and young professionals to the neighborhood. Street artists, such as Dede, installation artists such as Sigalit Landau, and many others made the upbeat neighborhood their home base.^[158][159] Florentin is now known as a hip, "cool" place to be in Tel Aviv with coffeehouses, markets, bars, galleries and parties.^[160]

Health

Tel Aviv is home to

Education

In 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.^[145] Sixty-four percent of students in the city are entitled to matriculation, more than 5 percent higher than the national average.^[145] 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.^[147] As a result, 20 additional kindergarten classes were opened in 2008–09 in the city. A new elementary school is planned north of Sde Dov as well as a new high school in northern Tel Aviv.^[147]

The first Hebrew high school, called Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium, was established in Jaffa in 1905 and moved to Tel Aviv after its founding in 1909, where a new campus on Herzl Street was constructed for it.

Tel Aviv University, the largest university in Israel, is 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.^[162][163] Its campus is located in the neighborhood of Ramat Aviv.^[164] Tel Aviv also has several colleges.^[165] The

Economy

Tel Aviv has been ranked as the twenty-fifth most important financial center in the world.^[167] In 1926, the country's first shopping arcade, Passage Pensak, was built there.^[168] By 1936, as tens of thousands of middle class immigrants arrived from Europe, Tel Aviv was already the largest city in Palestine. A small port was built at the Yarkon estuary, and many cafes, clubs and cinemas opened. Herzl Street became a commercial thoroughfare at this time.^[169]

Economic activities account for 17 percent of the GDP.

The Kiryat Atidim high tech zone opened in 1972 and the city has become a major world high tech hub. In December 2012, the city was ranked second on a list of top places to found a high tech startup company, just behind Silicon Valley.^[175] In 2013, Tel Aviv had more than 700 startup companies and research and development centers, and was ranked the second-most innovative city in the world, behind Medellín and ahead of New York City.^[176]

According to Forbes, nine of its fifteen Israeli-born billionaires live in Israel; four live in Tel Aviv and its suburbs.^[177][178] The cost of living in Israel is high, with Tel Aviv being its most expensive city to live in. In 2021, Tel Aviv became the world's most expensive city to live in, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit.^[179][13]

Shopping malls in Tel Aviv include Dizengoff Center, Ramat Aviv Mall and Azrieli Shopping Mall and markets such as Carmel Market, Ha'Tikva Market, and Bezalel Market.

Tel Aviv is home to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE), Israel's only stock exchange, which has reached record heights since the 1990s.^[180] 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.^[181] 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.^{[37][unreliable source]}

Tourism and recreation

Tel Aviv receives about 2.5 million international visitors annually, the fifth-most-visited city in the Middle East & Africa.

View of Tel Aviv

Culture

Architecture

Tel Aviv is home to different architectural styles that represent influential periods in its history. The early architecture of Tel Aviv consisted largely of European-style single-storey houses with red-tiled roofs.^[195] Neve Tzedek, the first neighbourhood to be built outside of Jaffa, is characterised by two-storey sandstone buildings.^[27] By the 1920s, a new eclectic Orientalist style came into vogue, combining European architecture with Eastern features such as arches, domes and ornamental tiles.^[195] Pagoda House (Beit HaPagoda), designed by Alexander Levy and built in 1924, is an example of this style.^[196] Municipal construction followed the "garden city" master plan drawn up by Patrick Geddes. Two- and three-storey buildings were interspersed with boulevards and public parks.^[195] Various architectural styles, such as Art Deco, classical and modernist also exist in Tel Aviv.

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

The Shalom Meir Tower, Israel's first skyscraper, was built in Tel Aviv in 1965 and remained the country's tallest building until 1999. At the time of its construction, the building rivaled Europe's tallest buildings in height, and was the tallest in the Middle East.

In the mid-1990s, the construction of skyscrapers began throughout the entire city, altering its skyline. Before that, Tel Aviv had had a generally low-rise skyline.^[199] In 2010, the Tel Aviv Municipality's Planning and Construction Committee launched a new master plan for the city for 2025. It decided not to allow the construction of any additional skyscrapers in the city center, while at the same time greatly increasing the construction of skyscrapers in the east. The ban extends to an area between the coast and Ibn Gabirol Street, and also between the Yarkon River and Eilat Street. It did not extend to towers already under construction or approved. One final proposed skyscraper project was approved, while dozens of others had to be scrapped. Any new buildings there will usually not be allowed to rise above six and a half stories. However, hotel towers along almost the entire beachfront will be allowed to rise up to 25 stories. According to the plan, large numbers of skyscrapers and high-rise buildings at least 18 stories tall would be built in the entire area between Ibn Gabirol Street and the eastern city limits, as part of the master plan's goal of doubling the city's office space to cement Tel Aviv as the business capital of Israel. Under the plan, "forests" of corporate skyscrapers will line both sides of the Ayalon Highway. Further south, skyscrapers rising up to 40 stories will be built along the old Ottoman railway between Neve Tzedek and Florentine, with the first such tower there being the Neve Tzedek Tower. Along nearby Shlavim Street, passing between Jaffa and south Tel Aviv, office buildings up to 25 stories will line both sides of the street, which will be widened to accommodate traffic from the city's southern entrance to the center.^[200][201]

Arts and museums

In the 1920s Tel-Aviv gradually became the center of art in Israel. In 1919, several prominent Olim from Odessa arrived in the Ruslan ship.^[202] In 1920 some of these set up the HaTomer art cooperative as well as opened the first modern art exhibition in Israel.^[202][203] In the 1925 following the return of Isaac Frenkel Frenel from Paris and his opening of the Histadrut art studio, and the introduction of École de Paris influence; Tel Aviv grew to supplement Jerusalem in its cultural importance in the visual arts; especially in respect to modern art.^{[204][205][206][207][208]} In the late 1920s to 1940s Tel Aviv painters were heavily influenced by the École de Paris, painting Tel Aviv's urban landscape, people and cafes in a manner influenced by Soutine, Pascin, Frenel, Chagall and others from the School of Paris.^{[209][210][204]} Tel Aviv''s bohemian culture was characterized by cafes such as Kassit which attracted numerous writers and painters.^[209][211] Numerous exhibitions were held in the Ohel theatre and the Herzliya Hebrew Gymansium prior to the opening of museums. Reuben Rubin and Nahum Gutman also worked and painted in the city, painting in the naive style.^[212][213] Tel Aviv hosts the Tel Aviv museum of art, established in 1932 in Meir Dizengoff's house, since having moved to a new larger location in 1971, as well as numerous galleries.^[214]

Israel has the highest number of museums per capita of any country, with three of the largest located in Tel Aviv.

Tel Aviv is a major center of culture and entertainment.

The Tel Aviv Cinematheque 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, "Icon" Science Fiction and Fantasy Festival, the Student Film Festival, the Jazz, Film and Videotape Festival and Salute to Israeli Cinema. The city has several multiplex cinemas.^[220]

Tel Aviv is an international hub of highly active and diverse nightlife with bars, dance bars and nightclubs staying open well past midnight. The largest area for nightclubs is the Tel Aviv port, where the city's large, commercial clubs and bars draw big crowds of young clubbers from both Tel Aviv and neighboring cities. The South of Tel Aviv is known for the popular Haoman 17 club, as well as for being the city's main hub of alternative clubbing, with underground venues including established clubs like the Block Club, Comfort 13 and Paradise Garage, as well as various warehouse and loft party venues. The Allenby/Rothschild area is another popular nightlife hub, featuring such clubs as the Pasaz, Radio EPGB and the Penguin. In 2013, Absolut Vodka introduced a specially designed bottle dedicated to Tel Aviv as part of its international cities series.^[228]

LGBT culture

Named "the best gay city in the world" by American Airlines, Tel Aviv is one of the most popular destinations for LGBT tourists internationally, with a large LGBT community.^[229][19] Approximately 25% of Tel Aviv's population identify as gay.^[230][231] 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 200,000 people yearly.^[232] 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 athletes for the 2009 World Outgames in Copenhagen.^[233] In addition, Tel Aviv hosts an annual LGBT film festival, known as TLVFest.

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.^[234] It has been called the "next hot destination" for fashion.^{[citation needed]} Israeli designers, such as swimwear company Gottex show their collections at leading fashion shows, including New York's Bryant Park fashion show.^{[citation needed]} In 2011, Tel Aviv hosted its first fashion week since the 1980s, with Italian designer Roberto Cavalli as a guest of honor.^[235]

Media

The three largest newspaper companies in Israel: Yedioth Ahronoth, Maariv and Haaretz are all based within the city limits.^[236] Several radio stations cover the Tel Aviv area, including the city-based Radio Tel Aviv.^[237]

The two major Israeli television networks,

Tel Aviv is famous for its wide variety of world-class restaurants, offering traditional Israeli dishes as well as international fare.[238] More than 100 sushi restaurants, the third highest concentration in the world, do business in the city.^[239] In Tel Aviv there are some dessert specialties, the most known is the

Sports

The city has a number of football stadiums, the largest of which is

Hapoel Tel Aviv Sports Club, founded in 1923, comprises more than 11 sports clubs,^[241] including Hapoel Tel Aviv Football Club (13 championships, 16 State Cups, one Toto Cup and once Asian champions) which plays in Bloomfield Stadium, and Hapoel Tel Aviv Basketball Club.

Bnei Yehuda Tel Aviv (once Israeli champion, twice State Cup winners and twice Toto Cup winner) is the Israeli football team that represents a neighborhood, the Hatikva Quarter in Tel Aviv, and not a city. Beitar Tel Aviv Bat Yam formerly played in the top division, the club now playing in Liga Leumit and also represents the city Bat Yam. Maccabi Jaffa formerly played in the top division, the club now playing in Liga Alef and represents the Jaffa. Shimshon Tel Aviv formerly played in the top division, the club now playing in Liga Alef. There are more Tel Aviv football teams: Hapoel Kfar Shalem, F.C. Bnei Jaffa Ortodoxim, Beitar Ezra, Beitar Jaffa, Elitzur Jaffa Tel Aviv, F.C. Roei Heshbon Tel Aviv, Gadna Tel Aviv Yehuda, Hapoel Kiryat Shalom, Hapoel Neve Golan and Hapoel Ramat Yisrael.

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.^[242] Meanwhile, the beaches of Tel Aviv provide a vibrant Matkot (beach paddleball) scene.^[243] Tel Aviv Lightning represent Tel Aviv in the Israel Baseball League.^[244] Tel Aviv also has an annual half marathon, run in 2008 by 10,000 athletes with runners coming from around the world.^[245]

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.^[246]

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. As of 2023, 56% of the residents are going to work without using cars and the plan is to expand it to 70% by the end of the decade.^[247]

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, Israels's largest bus company, provides intercity transportation.^[248]

The city is also served by local and inter-city

The Tel Aviv Savidor Central railway station is the main railway station of the city, and the second-busiest station in Israel. The city has five additional railway stations along the Ayalon Highway: three of them, Tel Aviv University, HaShalom (the busiest station in Israel, adjacent to Azrieli Center) and HaHagana (near the Tel Aviv central bus station), serve Tel Aviv directly, while the remaining two, Holon Junction and Holon-Wolfson, are within Tel Aviv's municipal boundaries but serve the southern suburb of Holon. It is estimated that over a million passengers travel by rail to Tel Aviv monthly. The trains do not run on Saturday and the principal Jewish festivals (Rosh Hashana (2 days), Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Simkhat Torah, Pessach (Passover) first and fifth days and Shavuot (Pentecost)). Jaffa railway station was the first railway station in the Middle East. It served as the terminus for the Jaffa–Jerusalem railway. The station opened in 1891 and closed in 1948. In 2005–2009, the station was restored and converted into an entertainment and leisure venue marketed as "HaTachana", Hebrew for "the station" (see homepage here:^[250]). The Jaffa–Jerusalem railway also included the Tel Aviv Beit Hadar railway station, which was opened in 1920 and replaced in 1970, and the Tel Aviv South railway station, which was opened in 1970 to replace Beit Hadar and itself closed in 1993. The Bnei Brak railway station, while located in Bnei Brak's municipal borders, is closer to the Tel Aviv neighborhood of Ramat HaHayal than to Bnei Brak's city center and was originally called Tel Aviv North.

The main highway leading to and within the city is the

The Tel Aviv Municipality encourages the use of bicycles in the city. Plans called for expansion of the paths to 100 km (62.1 mi) by 2009.^[260] By 2020, the city had 140 kilometres of bicycle paths with plans to reach 300 km by 2025.^[261] The city is at the center of the Ofnidan, a network of bicycle paths throughout the Gush Dan metropolitan area.

In April 2011, the Tel Aviv municipality launched

Foreign relations

The municipality of Tel Aviv signed agreements with many cities worldwide.

Cities that signed agreements with Tel Aviv^[263]

City	Country	Continent	Year of signing	Type of agreement
Almaty	Kazakhstan	Asia	1999	twin cities
Barcelona[264]	Spain	Europe	1998, ratified in 2013, revoked and restored in 2023	friendship and collaboration
Beijing	China	Asia	1995, 2004, 2006	understanding, friendship and collaboration
Belgrade	Serbia	Europe	1990	collaboration
Bonn	Germany	Europe	1983	collaboration
Budapest	Hungary	Europe	1989	collaboration
Buenos Aires	Argentina	South America	1988	twin cities
Cannes	France	Europe	1993	friendship
Chișinău	Moldova	Europe	2000	twin cities
Chongqing	China	Asia	2014	Memorandum of understanding
Cologne	Germany	Europe	1979	collaboration
Essen	Germany	Europe	1992	collaboration
Frankfurt	Germany	Europe	1980, expanded in 2017	collaboration
Freiburg im Breisgau	Germany	Europe	2012, 2015	Memorandum of understanding for sustainability, collaboration
Gaza City	Palestine	Asia	1999	Sister cities agreement[265]
Guangdong (province)	China	Asia	2014	Memorandum of understanding
Incheon	South Korea	Asia	2000	twin cities
İzmir	Turkey	Asia	1996	twin cities
Łódź	Poland	Europe	1994	collaboration
Milan	Italy	Europe	1994	twin cities
Montreal	Canada	North America	2016	friendship
Moscow	Russia	Europe	2014	Memorandum of understanding for economic, trade, scientific, technological and cultural fields
New York	United States	North America	1996	understanding, friendship and collaboration
Panama City	Panama	North America	2013	friendship
Paris	France	Europe	1985, expanded in 2010	collaboration
Philadelphia	United States	North America	1967	twin cities
Saint Petersburg	Russia	Europe	2011	collaboration
San Antonio	United States	North America	2011	friendship
Sofia	Bulgaria	Europe	1992	twin cities
Thessaloniki	Greece	Europe	1994	twin cities
Toulouse	France	Europe	1962	twin cities
Vienna	Austria	Europe	2005	economic collaboration
Warsaw	Poland	Europe	1992, 2009 (education collaboration)	collaboration
Yokohama	Japan	Asia	2012	friendship

Explanatory notes

References

General 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 (in 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.), Zürich, Yad Yearim, 2008 (in 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.
• Catherine Weill-Rochant (2006). Le plan de Patrick Geddes pour la " ville blanche " de Tel Aviv : une part d'ombre et de lumière. Volume 1 (PDF) (PhD thesis). Paris: Université Paris 8. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 December 2009. And: Catherine Weill-Rochant (2006). Le plan de Patrick Geddes pour la " ville blanche " de Tel Aviv : une part d'ombre et de lumière. Volume 2 (PDF) (PhD thesis). Paris: Université Paris 8. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 December 2009.
• Catherine Weill-Rochant, Le travail de Patrick Geddes à Tel-Aviv, un plan d'ombre et de lumière, Saarbrücken, Éditions Universitaires Européennes, May 2010.
• Jochen Visscher (ed.): Tel Aviv: The White City, Photographs by Stefan Boness, JOVIS Verlag Berlin 2012.
  ISBN 978-3-939633-75-4
  .

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tel Aviv-Yafo.

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Tel Aviv.

• Official website Archived 16 October 2015 at the Wayback Machine of The Tel Aviv municipality
• Tel Aviv Foundation