Cairo
Capital city of Egypt From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cairo (/ˈkaɪroʊ/ KY-roh; Arabic: القاهرة, romanized: al-Qāhirah, Egyptian Arabic pronunciation: [el.qɑ(ː)ˈheɾɑ] ) is the capital of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, and is the country's largest city, being home to more than 10 million people.[6] It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East. The Greater Cairo metropolitan area is the 12th-largest in the world by population with over 22.1 million people.[4]
Cairo
القاهرة | |
|---|---|
 Flag  Emblem | |
| Nickname: City of a Thousand Minarets | |
  Cairo Location of Cairo within Egypt  Cairo Cairo (Africa) | |
| Coordinates: 30°2′40″N 31°14′9″E | |
| Country | Egypt |
| Governorate | Cairo |
| First major foundation | 641–642 AD (Fustat) |
| Last major foundation | 969 AD (Cairo) |
| Government | |
| • Governor | Khaled Abdel Aal[1] |
| Area | |
| • Metro | 2,734 km2 (1,056 sq mi) |
| Elevation | 23 m (75 ft) |
| Population (2018) | |
| • Capital city | 10,100,166[3] |
| • Density | 3,700/km2 (10,000/sq mi) |
| • Metro | 22,183,000 |
| • Demonym | Cairene |
| GDP | |
| • Capital city | EGP 1,877 billion (US$ 120 billion) |
| • Metro | EGP 2,986 billion (US$ 190 billion) |
| Time zone | UTC+2 (EGY) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC+3 |
| Area code | (+20) 2 |
| Website | cairo.gov.eg |
| Official name | Historic Cairo |
| Type | Cultural |
| Criteria | i, v, vi |
| Designated | 1979 |
| Reference no. | 89 |
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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. Located near the Nile Delta,[7][8] the city first developed as Fustat following the Muslim conquest of Egypt in 641 next to an existing ancient Roman fortress, Babylon. Cairo was founded by the Fatimid dynasty in 969. It later superseded Fustat as the main urban centre during the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods (12th–16th centuries).[9] Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and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's historic center was awarded World Heritage Site status in 1979.[10] Cairo is considered a World City with a "Beta +" classification according to GaWC.[11]
Cairo has the oldest and largest film and music industry in the Arab world, as well as Egypt's oldest institution of higher learning, Al-Azhar University. Many international media, businesses, and organizations have regional headquarters in the city; the Arab League has had its headquarters in Cairo for most of its existence.
Cairo, like many other megacities, suffers from high levels of pollution and traffic. The Cairo Metro, opened in 1987, is the oldest metro system in Africa,[12] and ranks amongst the fifteen busiest in the world,[13] with over 1 billion[14] annual passenger rides. The economy of Cairo was ranked first in the Middle East in 2005,[15] and 43rd globally on Foreign Policy's 2010 Global Cities Index.[16]
The name of Cairo is derived from the Arabic al-Qāhirah (القاهرة), meaning 'the Vanquisher' or 'the Conqueror', given by the Fatimid Caliph al-Mu'izz following the establishment of the city as the capital of the Fatimid dynasty. Its full, formal name was al-Qāhirah al-Mu'izziyyah (القاهرة المعزيّة), meaning 'the Vanquisher of al-Mu'izz'.[17] It is also supposedly due to the fact that the planet Mars, known in Arabic by names such as an-Najm al-Qāhir (النجم القاهر, 'the Conquering Star'), was rising at the time of the city's founding.[18]
Egyptians often refer to Cairo as Maṣr (IPA: [mɑsˤɾ]; مَصر), the Egyptian Arabic name for Egypt itself, emphasizing the city's importance for the country.[19][20]
There are a number of Coptic names for the city. Tikešrōmi (Coptic: Ϯⲕⲉϣⲣⲱⲙⲓ Late Coptic: [di.kɑʃˈɾoːmi]) is attested in the 1211 text The Martyrdom of John of Phanijoit and is either a calque meaning 'man breaker' (Ϯ-, 'the', ⲕⲁϣ-, 'to break', and ⲣⲱⲙⲓ, 'man'), akin to Arabic al-Qāhirah, or a derivation from Arabic قَصْر الرُوم (qaṣr ar-rūm, "the Roman castle"), another name of Babylon Fortress in Old Cairo.[21] The Arabic name is also calqued as ⲧⲡⲟⲗⲓⲥ ϯⲣⲉϥϭⲣⲟ, "the victor city" in the Coptic antiphonary.[22]
The form Khairon (Coptic: ⲭⲁⲓⲣⲟⲛ) is attested in the modern Coptic text Ⲡⲓⲫⲓⲣⲓ ⲛ̀ⲧⲉ ϯⲁⲅⲓⲁ ⲙ̀ⲙⲏⲓ Ⲃⲉⲣⲏⲛⲁ (The Tale of Saint Verina).[23][better source needed] Lioui (Ⲗⲓⲟⲩⲓ Late Coptic: [lɪˈjuːj]) or Elioui (Ⲉⲗⲓⲟⲩⲓ Late Coptic: [ælˈjuːj]) is another name which is descended from the Greek name of Heliopolis (Ήλιούπολις).[21] Some argue that Mistram (Ⲙⲓⲥⲧⲣⲁⲙ Late Coptic: [ˈmɪs.təɾɑm]) or Nistram (Ⲛⲓⲥⲧⲣⲁⲙ Late Coptic: [ˈnɪs.təɾɑm]) is another Coptic name for Cairo, although others think that it is rather a name for the Abbasid province capital al-Askar.[24] Ⲕⲁϩⲓⲣⲏ (Kahi•ree) is a popular modern rendering of an Arabic name (others being Ⲕⲁⲓⲣⲟⲛ [Kairon] and Ⲕⲁϩⲓⲣⲁ [Kahira]) which is modern folk etymology meaning 'land of sun'. Some argue that it was the name of an Egyptian settlement upon which Cairo was built, but it is 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.[21] Cairo is also referred to as Ⲭⲏⲙⲓ (Late Coptic: [ˈkɪ.mi]) or Ⲅⲩⲡⲧⲟⲥ (Late Coptic: [ˈɡɪp.dos]), which means Egypt in Coptic, the same way it is referred to in Egyptian Arabic.[24]
Sometimes the city is informally referred to as Cairo by people from Alexandria (IPA: [ˈkæjɾo]; Egyptian Arabic: كايرو).[25]
Ancient settlements
The area around present-day Cairo had long been a focal point of Ancient Egypt due to its strategic location at the junction of the Nile Valley and the Nile Delta regions (roughly Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt), which also placed it at the crossing of major routes between North Africa and the Levant.[26][27] Memphis, the capital of Egypt during the Old Kingdom and a major city up until the Ptolemaic period, was located a short distance south west of present-day Cairo.[28] Heliopolis, another important city and major religious center, was located in what are now the modern districts of Matariya and Ain Shams in northeastern Cairo.[28][29] It was largely destroyed by the Persian invasions in 525 BC and 343 BC and partly abandoned by the late first century BC.[26]
However, the origins of modern Cairo are generally traced back to a series of settlements in the first millennium AD. Around the turn of the fourth century,[30] as Memphis was continuing to decline in importance,[31] the Romans established a large fortress along the east bank of the Nile. The fortress, called Babylon, was built by the Roman emperor Diocletian (r. 285–305) at the entrance of a canal connecting the Nile to the Red Sea that was created earlier by emperor Trajan (r. 98–117).[lower-alpha 2][32] Further north of the fortress, near the present-day district of al-Azbakiya, was a port and fortified outpost known as Tendunyas (Coptic: ϯⲁⲛⲧⲱⲛⲓⲁⲥ)[33] or Umm Dunayn.[34][35][36] While no structures older than the 7th century have been preserved in the area aside from the Roman fortifications, historical evidence suggests that a sizeable city existed. The city was important enough that its bishop, Cyrus, participated in the Second Council of Ephesus in 449.[37]
The Byzantine-Sassanian War between 602 and 628 caused great hardship and likely caused much of the urban population to leave for the countryside, leaving the settlement partly deserted.[35] The site today remains at the nucleus of the Coptic Orthodox community, which separated from the Roman and Byzantine churches in the late 4th century. Cairo's oldest extant churches, such as the Church of Saint Barbara and the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus (from the late 7th or early 8th century), are located inside the fortress walls in what is now known as Old Cairo or Coptic Cairo.[38]
Fustat and other early Islamic settlements
The Muslim conquest of Byzantine Egypt was led by Amr ibn al-As from 639 to 642. Babylon Fortress was besieged in September 640 and fell in April 641. In 641 or early 642, after the surrender of Alexandria (the Egyptian capital at the time), he founded a new settlement next to Babylon Fortress.[39][40] The city, known as Fustat (Arabic: الفسطاط, romanized: al-Fusṭāṭ, lit. 'the tent'), served as a garrison town and as the new administrative capital of Egypt. Historians such as Janet Abu-Lughod and André Raymond trace the genesis of present-day Cairo to the foundation of Fustat.[41][42] The choice of founding a new settlement at this inland location, instead of using the existing capital of Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast, may have been due to the new conquerors' strategic priorities. One of the first projects of the new Muslim administration was to clear and re-open Trajan's ancient canal in order to ship grain more directly from Egypt to Medina, the capital of the caliphate in Arabia.[43][44][45][46] Ibn al-As also founded a mosque for the city at the same time, now known as the Mosque of Amr Ibn al-As, the oldest mosque in Egypt and Africa (although the current structure dates from later expansions).