To understand the most important characteristics of a society, one must study its major cities.

Nowadays, every contemporary society has maintained its cultural and historic values that form special and very important traits on one hand, and newly created artistic or technologically advanced characteristics- such as beautifully constructed modern buildings or state of the art technology- on the other hand, that undoubtedly also represents characteristics of a modern society. However, some people believe that in order to understand and become familiar with basic characteristics that each society provides, one should visit only major cities, whereas other disagree with that statement. From my point of view, much of a society’s treasures are hidden in other provincial or smaller cities.

First of all, some claim that one can have a more general view of a society's culture and history by studying only its major cities, given that major cities are more likely to combine the knowledge, with various archeological museums and monuments, with the beauty of prehistoric buildings. However, this is not always the case, because almost every major city is based its operation on technology. Thus, the number of buildings, museums or other preserved throughout the years historic places is small. Many priceless items or even archeological sights could have been demolished or diminished by the people in big cities whose only goal is to show the cities luxuries and advances, not considering its historic values. In smaller cities, one is more likely to find historic sights or other places that exhibits the traits of the society.

Secondly, universities portay the foundation of every society providing knowledge and representing one of the temples of the characteristics of society and a beautiful sight. However, many universities are located in smaller cities outside the center. For instance, in my country; Greece, almost every university is located outside the major cities- Thessaloniki and Athens- due to lack of space.

Finally, nature and physical sights such as mountains, volcanoes e.t.c are found almost exclusively outside the major cities. To be more precise, the natural beauty is a necessary piece that defines every modern society. However, given that one is not able to see natural sights like greenlands or valleys that depict the identity of the whole society in big cities, he should visit some smaller cities outside. For instance, one of the most important trademarks of my society is the volcano on the island of Santorini, miles away from the capital.

In conclusion, from my point of view, one can learn almost everything about a society's technological advances from its major cities, however there are many other things one should explore in order to unlock a society's true values, that major cities do not provide.