Brazzaville is the capital and largest city of the Republic of the Congo. Constituting the financial and administrative centre of the country, it is located on the north side of the Congo River, opposite Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo; the population of the capital is estimated to exceed 1.8 million residents, comprising more than a third of the national populace, 40% of whom are employed in non-agricultural professions. During World War II, Brazzaville was the capital of Free France between 1940 and 1942. In 2013, Brazzaville was designated a City of Music by UNESCO, has been a member of the Creative Cities Network since then. Brazzaville lies on a large area to the north near the Pool Malebo. Mbamu, a large island within the Pool, is part of the Republic of Congo's territory. Brazzaville is 506 kilometres inland from the Atlantic Ocean and 474 kilometres south of the equator; the city is a commune, separated from the other regions of the republic. Around the city are large plains.

The town is flat, situated at an altitude of 317 metres. To distinguish between the two African countries with "Congo" in their names, the Republic of the Congo is sometimes called Congo-Brazzaville, as opposed to Congo-Kinshasa. Kinshasa lies directly across from Brazzaville; this is the only place in the world where two national capital cities are on opposite banks of a river, within sight of each other. Since the mid-19th century the two cities have been rivals in trade and power. There have been proposals to connect the two capitals by a Brazzaville–Kinshasa Bridge. In 2018, the African Development Bank and Africa50 signed a deal with both governments to develop the project. Brazzaville was founded by the French colonial empire upon an existing indigenous Bateke settlement called Ncuna, as part of the Scramble for Africa; the Italian-born explorer Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza, granted French citizenship in 1874 founded the settlement which commemorates his name on 10 September 1880. The local King, Makoko of the Téké, signed a treaty of protection with de Brazza which subjugated his lands to the French Empire.

From October 1880 until May 1882 a small squad of troops led by Senegalese Sergeant Malamine Camara occupied the site, preventing the land from falling into Belgian hands. The first large scale building work of the city only began four years in order as a competitor with Léopoldville which Belgian colonists built on the other side of the river; the Berlin Conference of 1884 placed French control over the area on an official footing. The city became the capital of the French Congo in 1904, it continued as capital with the creation of French Equatorial Africa, a federation founded in 1910, of French colonial states which encompassed Gabon, the Central African Republic and Chad until 1960. 1910–1915 saw the construction of major municipal buildings, including a courthouse and headquarters for the Banque de l'AEF and Institut Pasteur. In 1934 the Congo-Océan railway came into service, linking Brazzaville with the Atlantic port of Pointe-Noire. Construction of the railway resulted in the death of over 17,000 Africans, which led to a revolt in 1928.

During World War II Brazzaville and the rest of French Equatorial Africa remained beyond the control of Vichy France. In 1944, Brazzaville hosted a meeting of the French resistance forces and representatives of France's African colonies; the resulting Brazzaville Declaration represented an attempt to redefine the relationship between France and its African colonies. Until the 1960s, the city was divided into African sections. In 1980 it became a "commune" separated from the surrounding Pool Department and divided into nine "arrondissements"; the city has been a staging ground for wars, including conflicts between rebel and government forces and between forces of the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola. It was the scene of bloody civil wars throughout the 1990s which resulted in thousands of civilian deaths and which forced hundreds of thousands of refugees to flee the city. More thousands of people leaving the DRC have found their way to Brazzaville. In April 2016 fighting occurred between police and local militia units, with at least 18 people killed.

As of the 2007 census, it had a population of 1.37 million. The projection of the CNSEE shows an increase to 1.7 million by 2015, but the projection was made before 2007 and based on a lower estimate of the population than recorded in the census. The United Nations Population Division estimate for 2014 is 1.83 million. The populous city of Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, lies across the Congo River from Brazzaville. Together with Kinshasa, the combined conurbation of Kinshasa-Brazzaville would thus have about 12 million inhabitants, although significant political and infrastructure challenges prevent the two cities from functioning with any meaningful connection. Brazzaville, like Pointe-Noire, has both the status of a commune and a department, it is thus governed by a departmental council. The mayor is the

Conus kuroharai, common name Kurohara's cone, is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Conidae, the cone snails and their allies. Like all species within the genus Conus, these snails are venomous, they are capable of "stinging" humans, therefore live ones should be handled or not at all. The size of the shell varies between 72 mm; this marine species occurs off the Philippines and the Loyalty Islands. Tucker J. K. & Tenorio M. J. Illustrated catalog of the living cone shells. 517 pp. Wellington, Florida: MdM Publishing. Puillandre N. Duda T. F. Meyer C. Olivera B. M. & Bouchet P.. One, four or 100 genera? A new classification of the cone snails. Journal of Molluscan Studies. 81: 1-23 The Conus Biodiversity website Cone Shells - Knights of the Sea "Graphiconus kuroharai". Gastropods.com. Retrieved 16 January 2019

Katajanokka is a neighbourhood of Helsinki, with around 4000 inhabitants in 2005. The district is located adjacent to the immediate downtown area, though in the first major town plan for Helsinki from the mid-18th century, the area fell outside the fortifications planned to encircle the city, it was a headland of the Helsinki peninsula but is now technically an island, as a small canal was dug across the base of the headland in the 19th century. Katajanokka is one of the most distinguished neighbourhoods in Helsinki. Katajanokka's residents include former Finnish President Mauno Koivisto and composer Einojuhani Rautavaara; the south side of Katajanokka is dominated by a passenger harbour, frequented by large cruiseferries traveling between Helsinki, Mariehamn and Rostock. The rest of the district comprises several small parks; the western part of the residential area, known as the "Old Side" of Katajanokka, is an upscale neighborhood and a well-preserved example of early 20th century Art Nouveau architecture, though up until the mid-19th century – while the centre of Helsinki was being filled with stone buildings – the area was still a wooden shanty town.

The eastern part was for a long time a closed military area containing a naval base and shipyard a commercial shipyard. It was redeveloped in the 1970s and 1980s into a residential zone referred to as the "New Side" of Katajanokka; the new residential area is considered an exceptional example of modern town planning. A major part of the project was the conversion and extension of the old Russian naval barracks to house the Finnish foreign ministry; the northern shore of Katajanokka still serves as a base for the Finnish coast guard, Helsinki maritime police as well as the Finnish icebreaker fleet. Landmarks of Katajanokka include the Russian Orthodox Cathedral known as Uspenski Cathedral, the Merikasarmi complex of the Foreign Ministry and the Finnish headquarters of Stora Enso. Another famous building in Katajanokka is the former district prison of Southern Finland; the old prison dates back to 1837, functioned as a prison until 2002. The prison underwent an extensive interior renovation to convert the cells of the prison into hotel rooms, with sets of two or three cells combined to make up the current hotel rooms.

The Best Western Premier Hotel Katajanokka opened in May 2007 with 106 guest rooms. Renovations cost a reported 15 million euro; as a historic building, strict limits were imposed on the redevelopment due to the strict regime of protection for significant buildings, in effect in Finland. Thus, as a hotel, the exterior of the building has been preserved, as has the central corridor of the old prison and the old prison wall. A restaurant at the lowest level of the hotel has attempted to keep much of the character of the old prison alive, is called the "Jailbird Restaurant". However, an actual former prisoner told a Finnish newspaper that the supposed "prison cutlery" is different from what the prison used: for example, prisoners never drank out of tin cups. During the development of Katajanokka in the 1970s and 1980s, many old red brick industrial buildings were spared by converting them for public uses, such as a primary school and an indoors sports arena. There was controversy over the demolition of the former cadet school of the Russian navy, built in the early 20th century.

Vacated by the Finnish military in the 1980s, the building survived, with various uses as a cultural centre. In the late 1990s, the city of Helsinki announced that it was going to demolish the building to build a new apartment building in its place; this caused huge protests, the demolition was put off for a decade because of opposition from local inhabitants, the Green League party. The navy school building was demolished in autumn 2006. However, additional problems resulted: Contrary to what the city of Helsinki and the architecture bureau responsible for the new building had thought, there was no solid rock bottom underneath the old building, but only scattered rocks here and there; because the original building had stood there since Czarist Russia, no original construction plans were available, therefore the new plans had to be redone from scratch. The local community organisation of Katajanokka is called Katajanokkaseura; the organization publishes Katajanokan kaiku. There is an annual running event called the Katajanokan ympärijuoksu, open for everyone who lives in Katajanokka or has relatives living there.

Katajanokka is principally known for its fine examples of Jugendstil architecture. Other prominent styles apparent on the island are modernism, manifested in Alvar Aalto's Enso-Gutzeit Building, the red-brick industrial former harbour buildings and prison. Results of the 2011 Finnish parliamentary election in Katajanokka: National Coalition Party 35.0% Green League 20.1% Social Democratic Party 13.0% Swedish People's Party 8.8% Left Alliance 8.8% True Finns 8.0% Centre Party 3.8% Christian Democrats 1.2% Griffiths, Gareth. The Polemical Aalto; the Enso-Gutzeit Building, Datutop 19, Tampere. ISBN 951-722-789-2 Jaatinen, Carina & Lindh, Tommi & Lunkka, Hannu. Helsingin kantakaupungin rakennuskulttuuri. Katajanokan kaupunginosan inventointi. Helsingin kaupunginmuseo. ISBN 951-718-174-4. (An examination of the architectural history of