Cairo
Cairo is the capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate. It is home to more than 10.5 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world, and the Middle East. The Greater Cairo metropolitan area is one of the largest in the world by population with over 22 million people. Areas of what would become Cairo were inhabited from pre-dynastic and early-dynastic ancient Egypt c. 6000 years ago, as the Giza pyramid complex and the ancient cities of Memphis and Heliopolis are today within the city.
Located near the Nile Delta, the predecessor city was Fustat following Babylon. Subsequently, Cairo was founded in 969. It later superseded Fustat as the main urban centre during the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods. Cairo has since become a longstanding centre of 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. The city is considered a regional center of finance and commerce, academics and the arts, and is home to Cairo Symphony Orchestra and the Cairo Opera House, while the Academy of Arts provides visual arts education.
Cairo is home to Egypt's oldest university, Al-Azhar University, one of the oldest universities in the world, as well as the oldest and largest film and music industry in Africa and the Arab world. Many international media, businesses, and organizations have regional headquarters in Cairo, such as the headquarters of the Arab League, the regional offices of the World Health Organization, Food and Agriculture Organization, International Civil Aviation Organization, United Nations Development Programme, African Space Agency, and also the headquarters of FIBA Africa.
Cairo is a key global city, 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, 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 on Foreign Policy Global Cities Index, and first in Africa in 2025 according to International Monetary Fund, and continues to be a major destination for foreign direct investment due to its massive consumer market and strategic location.
Etymology
The name of Cairo is derived from the Arabic ', 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 ', meaning 'the Vanquisher of al-Mu'izz'. It is also supposedly due to the fact that the planet Mars, known in Arabic by names such as an-Najm al-Qāhir, was rising at the time of the city's founding.Egyptians often refer to Cairo as ', the Egyptian Arabic name for Egypt itself, emphasising the city's importance for the country.
There are a number of Coptic names for the city. Tikešrōmi is attested in the 1211 text The Martyrdom of John of Phanijoit and is either a calque meaning 'man breaker', akin to Arabic ', or a derivation from Arabic قَصْر الرُوم, another name of Babylon Fortress in Old Cairo. The Arabic name is also calqued as, "the victor city" in the Coptic antiphonary.
The form Khairon is attested in the modern Coptic text Ⲡⲓⲫⲓⲣⲓ ⲛ̀ⲧⲉ ϯⲁⲅⲓⲁ ⲙ̀ⲙⲏⲓ Ⲃⲉⲣⲏⲛⲁ. or is another name which is descended from the Greek name of Heliopolis. Some argue that or is another Coptic name for Cairo, although others think that it is rather a name for the Abbasid province capital al-Askar. Ⲕⲁϩⲓⲣⲏ is a popular modern rendering of an Arabic name 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. Cairo is also referred to as Ⲭⲏⲙⲓ or Ⲅⲩⲡⲧⲟⲥ, which means Egypt in Coptic, the same way it is referred to in Egyptian Arabic.
Sometimes the city is informally referred to as by people from Alexandria.
History
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, which also placed it at the crossing of major routes between North Africa and the Levant. 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. 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. It was largely destroyed by the Persian invasions in 525 BC and 343 BC and partly abandoned by the late first century BC.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, as Memphis was continuing to decline in importance, the Romans established a large fortress along the east bank of the Nile. The trading post of Babylon, first mentioned in 50 BC, became a fortress, built by the Roman emperor Diocletian at the entrance of a canal connecting the Nile to the Red Sea that was created earlier by Emperor Trajan. Further north of the fortress, near the present-day district of al-Azbakiya, was a port and fortified outpost known as Tendunyas or Umm Dunayn. 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.
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. 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, are located inside the fortress walls in what is now known as Old Cairo or Coptic Cairo.
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. The city, known as Fustat, 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.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. 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.
File:Nilometer, Cairo; built in 861 during reign of Abbasid Caliph al-Mutawakkil.jpg|alt=A man on a donkey walks past a palm tree, with a mosque and market behind Mohamed kamal|thumb|The Nilometer in Cairo, built by the order of the Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil |left
In 750, following the overthrow of the Umayyad Caliphate by the Abbasids, the new rulers created their own settlement to the northeast of Fustat which became the new provincial capital. This was known as al-Askar as it was laid out like a military camp. A governor's residence and a new mosque were also added, with the latter completed in 786. The Red Sea canal re-excavated in the 7th century was closed by the Abbasid Caliph al-Mansur, but a part of the canal, known as the Khalij, continued to be a major feature of Cairo's geography and of its water supply until the 19th century. In 861, on the orders of the Abbasid Caliph al-Mutawakkil, a Nilometer was built on Roda Island near Fustat. Although it was repaired and given a new roof in later centuries, its basic structure is still preserved today, making it the oldest preserved Islamic-era structure in Cairo today.
File:Kairo_Ibn_Tulun_Moschee_BW_5.jpg|alt=|thumb|The Mosque of Ibn Tulun, built by Ahmad Ibn Tulun in 876–879 AD
In 868, a commander of Turkic origin named Bakbak was sent to Egypt by the Abbasid Caliph al-Mu'taz to restore order after a rebellion in the country. He was accompanied by his stepson, Ahmad ibn Tulun, who became effective governor of Egypt. Over time, Ibn Tulun gained an army and accumulated influence and wealth, allowing him to become the de facto independent ruler of both Egypt and Syria by 878. In 870, he used his growing wealth to found a new administrative capital, al-Qata'i, to the northeast of Fustat and of al-Askar.
The new city included a palace known as the Dar al-Imara, a parade ground known as al-Maydan, a bimaristan, and an aqueduct to supply water. Between 876 and 879 Ibn Tulun built a great mosque, now known as the Mosque of Ibn Tulun, at the center of the city, next to the palace. After his death in 884, Ibn Tulun was succeeded by his son and his descendants who continued a short-lived dynasty, the Tulunids. In 905, the Abbasids sent general Muhammad Sulayman al-Katib to re-assert direct control over the country. Tulunid rule was ended and al-Qatta'i was razed to the ground, except for the mosque which remains standing today.