Ibrahimia

Ibrahimia (Arabic: الإبراهيمية al-ibrāhīmiyah) is the 5th-most populous city in the Arab Union and seat of the federal government. The city is bounded to the north by the Sea of Galilee, to the northeast by the Syrian city of Tel Kazir, to the east by the Jordanian city of Adasiya, to the south by the River Jordan, and to the west by the Palestinian city of Kinneret. As of January 2020, Ibrahimia proper had a population of 4.56 million; an additional 1.78 million people live in the immediate metropolitan area, for a total metropolitan population of 6.34 million. Together with the cities of Damascus in Syria and Irbid in Jordan, Ibrahimia's metropolitan area forms the west-central portion of the larger Ibrahimia–Damascus–Irbid Megalopolis; home to 17.35 million people, it is the second largest conurbation in the Arab Union, after the Nile Delta Megalopolis centred on Cairo, Egypt. As the federal capital, Ibrahimia is home to the Arab Congress, the Supreme Court of the Arab Union, the Presidential Palace, the official meeting place of the Council of Ministers, the headquarters of the Ministry of Defence and most other federal government ministries and executive agencies, the National Museum and National Armoury, and the union's third-busiest airport.

As the federal capital city, Ibrahimia is coterminous with the Metropolitan Arab Republic (الجمهورية العربية المتروبوليتانية al-jumhūriyah al-‘arabīyah al-mitrūbūlītānīyah), the official constitutional name of the municipality. The same article of the Constitution of the Arab Union enumerating the 20 union republics, detailing their rights and responsibilities, and detailing the process for the admission of new republics, also mandates for the existence of a single incorporated municipality outside the jurisdiction of and equal to the 20 union republics, with all powers and rights entailed therein. As such, Ibrahimia is entitled to the same federal representation as the republics, namely the election of 5 senators to the Council of Republics (the upper chamber of the Arab Congress) and 1 deputy per 355,000 population (most recently 13 deputies) to the Council of Deputies (the lower chamber). The Mayor of Ibrahimia is a symbolic position, held ex officio by the Premier of the Metropolitan Arab Republic, who is nominated and appointed by the Metropolitan Arab Congress (the capital's republican congress) and confirmed by the President of the Arab Union. The premier's cabinet doubles as the city's de facto municipal council, overseeing all public administration within Ibrahimia except at the federal level.

Ibrahimia was incorporated as a municipality on 1 June 1994, the first step in the planned construction of a new, neutral seat for the federal government, which was entirely overseen by the federal government's State Committee for Republics and Territories. Following the planned city's completion in June 1999, the Palestinian Arab Republic, in which the incorporated municipality was located, ceded the territory to the federal government, creating the first federal district in the Union of Arab Republics; however, as required by the constitution, the newly independent municipality was subsequently declared a union republic-equal. As the formerly Palestinian territory was located on the border with Syria and Jordan, the new federal capital found itself situated roughly evenly between the republics of Palestine, Syria and Jordan. While all branches of government have their headquarters in Ibrahimia proper, many ministries and subordinate agencies and other national institutions are located in the surrounding suburbs in Palestine, Syria or Jordan. As such, the immediate metropolitan area is often informally known as the Capital Region.