46 Facts About Cairo

Cairo is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world.

Cairo is associated with ancient Egypt, as the Giza pyramid complex and the ancient cities of Memphis and Heliopolis are located in its geographical area.

Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life, and is titled "the city of a thousand minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture.

Cairo is considered a World City with a "Beta +" classification according to GaWC.

Today, Cairo has the oldest and largest cinema and music industry in the Arab World, as well as the world's second-oldest institution of higher learning, Al-Azhar University.

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The Cairo Metro, opened in 1987, is the oldest metro system in Africa, and ranks amongst the fifteen busiest in the world, with over 1 billion annual passenger rides.

The economy of Cairo was ranked first in the Middle East in 2005, and 43rd globally on Foreign Policy 2010 Global Cities Index.

Some argue that it was a name of an Egyptian settlement upon which Cairo was built, but it's rather doubtful as this name is not attested in any Hieroglyphic or Demotic source, although some researchers, like Paul Casanova, view it as a legitimate theory.

Cairo is referred to as or, which means Egypt in Coptic, the same way it's referred to in Egyptian Arabic.

However, the origins of modern Cairo are generally traced back to a series of settlements in the first millennium AD.

Cairo was accompanied by his stepson, Ahmad ibn Tulun, who became effective governor of Egypt.

Cairo remained a relatively exclusive royal city for most of this era, but during the tenure of Badr al-Gamali as vizier the restrictions were loosened for the first time and richer families from Fustat were allowed to move into the city.

Meanwhile, Cairo flourished as a centre of Islamic scholarship and a crossroads on the spice trade route among the civilisations in Afro-Eurasia.

Under the reign of the Mamluk sultan al-Nasir Muhammad, Cairo reached its apogee in terms of population and wealth.

Cairo built or restored numerous monuments in Cairo, in addition to commissioning projects beyond Egypt.

However, during the 16th and 17th centuries, Cairo remained an important economic and cultural centre.

Under the Ottomans, Cairo expanded south and west from its nucleus around the Citadel.

Cairo itself was besieged by a British and Ottoman force culminating with the French surrender on 22 June 1801.

The British departed Cairo following the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, but the city's rapid growth showed no signs of abating.

Concurrently, Cairo established itself as a political and economic hub for North Africa and the Arab world, with many multinational businesses and organisations, including the Arab League, operating out of the city.

In 1992, Cairo was hit by an earthquake causing 545 deaths, injuring 6, 512 and leaving around 50, 000 people homeless.

Until the mid-19th century, when the river was tamed by dams, levees, and other controls, the Nile in the vicinity of Cairo was highly susceptible to changes in course and surface level.

The land on which Cairo was established in 969 was located underwater just over three hundred years earlier, when Fustat was first built.

The areas, which are home to most of Cairo's embassies, are surrounded on the north, east, and south by the older parts of the city.

Old Cairo, located south of the centre, holds the remnants of Fustat and the heart of Egypt's Coptic Christian community, Coptic Cairo.

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Northern and extreme eastern parts of Cairo, which include satellite towns, are among the most recent additions to the city, as they developed in the late-20th and early-21st centuries to accommodate the city's rapid growth.

In Cairo, and along the Nile River Valley, the climate is a hot desert climate.

Cairo's hospitals include the JCI-accredited As-Salaam International Hospital—Corniche El Nile, Maadi, Ain Shams University Hospital, Dar Al Fouad, Nile Badrawi Hospital, 57357 Hospital, as well as Qasr El Eyni Hospital.

Greater Cairo has long been the hub of education and educational services for Egypt and the region.

Today, Greater Cairo is the centre for many government offices governing the Egyptian educational system, has the largest number of educational schools, and higher education institutes among other cities and governorates of Egypt.

Cairo has an extensive road network, rail system, subway system and maritime services.

Football is the most popular sport in Egypt, and Cairo has a number of sporting teams that compete in national and regional leagues most notably, Al Ahly, Zamalek SC who are the CAF first and second African clubs of the 20th century.

Cairo failed at the applicant stage when bidding for the 2008 Summer Olympics, which was hosted in Beijing, China.

Cairo is the official end point of Cross Egypt Challenge where its route ends yearly in the most sacred place in Egypt, under the Great Pyramids of Giza with a huge trophy-giving ceremony.

Cairo held its first international film festival 16 August 1976, when the first Cairo International Film Festival was launched by the Egyptian Association of Film Writers and Critics, headed by Kamal El-Mallakh.

Cairo's economy has traditionally been based on governmental institutions and services, with the modern productive sector expanding in the 20th century to include developments in textiles and food processing - specifically the production of sugar cane.

Cairo Tower is a free-standing tower with a revolving restaurant at the top.

The area includes the Coptic Cairo, which holds a high concentration of old Christian churches such as the Hanging Church, the Greek Orthodox Church of St George, and other Christian or Coptic buildings, most of which are located over the site of the ancient Roman fortress.

Cairo holds one of the greatest concentrations of historical monuments of Islamic architecture in the world.

Settlement that was formally named Cairo was founded to the northeast of Fustat in 959 AD by the victorious Fatimid army.

The situation is so severe that in 2017, Cairo was named by one poll as the most dangerous megacity for women in the world.

Air quality measurements in Cairo have been recording dangerous levels of lead, carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, and suspended particulate matter concentrations due to decades of unregulated vehicle emissions, urban industrial operations, and chaff and trash burning.

Cairo has a very poor dispersion factor because of its lack of rain and its layout of tall buildings and narrow streets, which create a bowl effect.

Cairo has many unregistered lead and copper smelters which heavily pollute the city.

Cairo produces 10, 000 tons of waste material each day, 4, 000 tons of which is not collected or managed.

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The Cairo Cleaning and Beautification Agency was founded to collect and recycle the waste; they work with the Zabbaleen community that has been collecting and recycling Cairo's waste since the turn of the 20th century and live in an area known locally as Manshiyat naser.