cereal crops, fruits, and vegetables.

cereal crops, fruits, and vegetables. Until quite recently, Egypt
was able to produce more than enough food for the people liv-
ing on the shores of the Nile. And even today, this is where 9
out of every 10 Egyptians live. A map showing the population
distribution in Egypt is astonishing—the dots representing
thousands of people create a perfect outline map of the Nile
River and the Nile Delta on the Mediterranean, and there are
few dots elsewhere.
The city of Aswan, located in Upper Egypt, is the southern terminus of the
Nile River valley. Below Aswan, the Nile flows through several cataracts
and dams and the region is extremely dry. Pictured here is the Old
Cataract Hotel, with the Nile River to the left.
Driving north from Cairo, there are lush cotton fields and
numerous cities and villages along the delta. From Cairo, it is
possible to reach the Mediterranean Sea in about four hours.
The roads stretching southward along the Nile pass through
bright green fields and innumerable settlements, mostly
villages—southern Egypt is more rural and poorer than the
north. After a three-day trip, the Nile Valley stops at the frontier
city of Aswan. It has a distinctively African feeling, and while
the weather in the previous places you visited was warm, it is
now hot. The Nubian people who live here are darker skinned
than the Egyptians downstream (to the north), and many goods
in Aswan’s markets are from sub-Saharan Africa. South of town
there is a giant dam that blocks the Nile River, and stretching
southward from the dam all the way into neighboring Sudan is
a great reservoir, Lake Nasser.