Helwan is a suburban district in the Southern Area of Cairo, Egypt. The area of Helwan witnessed prehistoric, ancient Egyptian, Roman and Muslim era activity. More recently it was designated as a city until as late as the 1960s, before it became contiguous with the city of Cairo and was incorporated as a district. For a brief period between April 2008 and April 2011 it was redesignated as a city, and served as the capital of the now defunct Helwan Governorate that was split from Cairo and Giza governorates, before being re-incorporated back into them. The kism of Helwan had a population of 521,239 in the 2017 census.