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Cairo has 7,947,121 people. About 17,290,000 people live in its urban area. This makes it the biggest city of the Arab World. It also is the city with the biggest urban area in Africa. The city is on the NileRiver.
History
Ancient settlements
The area that is now Cairo has historically been an important area in Ancient Egypt because of its location at the place where the Nile River and Nile Delta meet. Memphis, an ancient capital of Egypt during the Old Kingdom was located a short distance southwest of what is now Cairo. Heliopolis was also located in the modern districts of Matariya and Ain Shams in Cairo.
The origins of modern Cairo began from a series of settlements in the 1st millenium AD. As Memphis became less important, the Romans built a fortress east of the Nile. This would become the fortress of Babylon, the earliest form of modern Cairo.
After the Arab conquest of Egypt led by Muhammad's companionAmr ibn al-As, Babylon fortress fell in April 641. After the surrender of Alexandria, he founded a new settlement next to Babylon fortress. The city was called Fustat (Arabic: الفسطاط, romanized:al-Fusṭāṭ, lit.'the tent') and became the new administrative capital of Egypt, replacing Alexandria.
In 969, the Fatimid Caliphate conquered Egypt. The Fatimid Caliphal-Mu'izz li-Din Allah established a new fortified city northeast of Fustat known as al-Manṣūriyyah. It took four years to build the city, and it was built to become the new capital of their caliphate. During that time, the construction of al-Azhar Mosque was ordered, and the mosque would become a centre for learning and education, with its library having hundreds of thousands of books.
When Caliph al-Mu'izz arrived from the old Fatimid capital of Mahdia, he named the city Qāhirat al-Mu'izz ("The Vanquisher of al-Mu'izz"), which was eventually simplified to al-Qāhira, which is where the English name "Cairo" comes from.
In 1171, Kurdish leader Saladin was appointed as the new vizier of Egypt by the Fatimids. Saladin ended Fatimid rule two years later, beginning the Ayyubid Sultanate. He built a large stone fortress on a hill known as the Cairo Citadel.
Later, in 1250, a group of slave soldiers called the Mamluks took control of Egypt and created the Mamluk Sultanate, ruled by a sultan. The Mamluks built many beautiful mosques and schools with tall towers called minarets. As a result, it became known as the "City of a Thousand Minarets".
Ottoman era
In 1517, the Ottoman Empire conquered Egypt. Cairo became a provincial capital, ruled by a governor sent from the Ottoman capital Istanbul. During this time, Cairo lost some of its importance as a trade centre after European sailors found new sea routes around Africa to Asia, so fewer traders passed through Egypt.
Despite this, the Mamluks de facto stayed in power in the local government even though the Ottomans were officially in charge (de jure)
Modern era
In 1798, the French military leader Napoleon Bonaparte captured Cairo for three years. After the French left, a new leader called Muhammad Ali Pasha became the wali (ruler) of Egypt, and is often called the "founder of modern Egypt". He built many roads, factories and modern buildings in Cairo.
In the 1860s, his grandson Khedive Ismail wanted to make Cairo look like a "Paris on the Nile" and hired French architects to build a new district next to the old city with wide streets and parks, which is now called Downtown Cairo.
In 1992, Cairo was devastated by a 5.8 magnitude earthquake that caused 545 deaths, injuring 6,512, and made 50,000 people homeless, the most destructive since 1847.
Nowadays, Cairo is growing very fast. Millions of people have migrated from the countryside to the city, causing urbanisation. This has led to pollution and traffic problems, and the majority of Egyptians living in slums are in Cairo.
Geography
Climate
The city of Cairo has a hot desert climate (BWh). It has a hot, sunny and dry climate all year long. The city, however, has more humidity than other cities with the hot desert climate (BWh).
The Egyptian Museum holds the world’s largest collection of antiquities from the time of the ancient Egyptians. Many treasures from the tomb of PharaohTutankhamun were previously in this museum, but have now been moved to the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza.
Naguib Sawiris, 62nd richest person on Earth in a 2007 list of billionaires, reaching US$10.0 billion with his company Orascom Telecom Holding[source?]
↑Ruggles, D.F. (2020). Tree of pearls: The extraordinary architectural patronage of the 13th-century Egyptian slave-queen Shajar al-Durr. Oxford University Press.
↑Rose, Christopher; Boxberger, Linda (1995). "Ottoman Cairo". Cairo: Living Past, Living Future. The University of Texas Centre for Middle Eastern Studies. Archived from the original on 6 June 2007. Retrieved 30 July 2009.
↑Roman Adrian Cybriwsky, Capital Cities around the World: An Encyclopedia of Geography, History, and Culture, ABC-CLIO, USA, 2013, p. 76
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Egypt
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