Cairo
Egypt’s largest city by far is Cairo, with a population estimated
to be as many as 15 to 20 million in the metropolitan area. It
is an urban giant, a megacity, the largest city in Africa and one
of the largest in the world. Up to 25 percent of all Egyptians,
and half of the country’s urban population, live in Cairo. The
second-ranking city is Alexandria (about 4 million), along the
Mediterranean coast. Other important cities of the Nile Delta
are Tanta and al-Mahalla al-Kubra, and major cities of the Nile
Valley are Minya, Asyut, Qena, and Aswan.
Cairo has a clear geographic reason for being Egypt’s lead-
ing city—it is strategically located near the junction of the Nile
Delta and the Nile Valley. It is really several cities established
one next to another over time, beginning with the ancient
Egyptians, and gradually fused into one flowing whole. The
historic heart of the city is in the east, where the Fatimids
established walled al-Qahira in a.d. 969. It has all the typical
elements of the classic Middle Eastern city, known in Arabic as