Cairo is the capital of Egypt and one of the largest cities in Africa. Cairo stood for more than 1,000 years in the same location on the Nile. Cairo is the gateway to the Nile Delta, where the lower Nile splits into the Rashid and Damietta branches. Metropolitan Cairo includes the Cairo Governorate as well as other areas.some of which belong to neighboring governorates such as Giza and Kulaibiya. The province’s area is 83 square miles (214 km2). pop. (2006) Governorate: 7,786,640. (2005 est.) Metropolitan area, 11,128,000.
Character of the city
Cairo is a place of physical contrast. However, in the older interior neighborhoods to the east, beneath the eastern desert foothills and rocky outcrops of the Moqattam and Jabal al-Ahmar .
The city compares old and new, between East and West. The Pyramids of Giza, near Memphis, are located on the southwestern edge of the city, and the obelisk to the northeast represents the location of Heliopolis, where Plato once studied; Modern landmarks of high-rise hotels and Western-style apartment buildings overlooking the Nile. Between these two extremes are other architectural monuments dating back to the Roman, Arab and Turkish eras. In addition to supermarkets, cinemas, hotels and houses, Cairo has a large working bazaar and a huge semi-walled medieval city with more than 400 registered historical monuments, including mosques, mausoleums and monumental stone gates.
