Once part of Sichuan province, it was carved off in 1997 to become what Beijing calls a provincial-level city, joining Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin in that category.

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Its Mount Seymour Provincial Park - just moments from the city centre - provides more than a dozen popular hiking trails and the possibility of sighting (preferably from a good distance) a bear or cougar.

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Jinze turned out to be a bustling provincial township within the city limits, filled with grimy concrete-block housing and shabby stores.

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Both Mr. Sharif's PML-N and Mr. Khan's PTI draw much of their support from Punjab, the country's wealthiest province, and the election is particularly hard-fought in Lahore, the provincial capital and the country's second largest city.

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Both Mr. Sharif's PML-N and Mr. Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf draw much of their support from Punjab, the country's wealthiest province, and the election was particularly hard-fought in Lahore, the provincial capital and the country's second largest city.

WSJ: Strong Turnout as Pakistan Votes

The financier, who has swapped his Czech citizenship for Irish, failed to appear in a court in Plzen, a provincial city, on March 17th to testify in the retrial of a former secret-service agent, Vaclav Wallis.

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In its 700-odd years of recorded history, the city has been both capital city and provincial backwater.

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He was hired by RT, the Kremlin-financed television station, after giving an impressive presentation on a cucumber festival in the provincial city of Kirov, he says.

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During Estrada's presidential campaign, Manuel worked as the then-vice president's chief fundraiser while Ronaldo handled the political aspects, recruiting opposition candidates for provincial governors, city and town mayors and congressmen.

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