When most people think about towns and cities
in Egypt they only tend to think of the major cities or the ones associated
with tourist attractions, but there are actually more than 200 towns and cities
which have populations of over 15,000.
Because 90% of Egypt is desert, these towns and
cities have grown up either hugging the River Nile, along the shores of the
Mediterranean or Red Seas, beside the Suez Canal, or among one of the desert
oases. Due to Egypt’s enormous growth of population this has caused many areas
to actually be built on sandy areas, rather than the more sustainable soil.
Giza is a prime example of this as it slowly moves towards the plateau where
the famous pyramids were built.
For administrative purposes Egypt is divided
into 27 governorates, which are the top tier of the country's five-tier
jurisdiction hierarchy. Each governorate is administered by a governor, who is
appointed by the President of Egypt, serving at the president's discretion.
These governorates have a population density of more than one-thousand per Km²,
though the 3 largest (Cairo, Alexandria and Giza) have a population density of
less than two per Km². They are either fully "urban" or else a
mixture of "urban" and "rural". The official distinction
between "urban" and "rural" is reflected in the lower
tiers: urban governorates have no regions, or “markaz”, as these are just an
assortment of villages. Governorates may, however, comprise of just one city,
as in the case of Cairo or Alexandria. These one-city governorates are divided
into districts (basically urban neighbourhoods); Cairo having 23 districts
whilst Alexandria has only 6.
Egypt Main Cities:
Cairo
The origins of the present-day Cairo can be
traced back to the Egyptian capital of Memphis, which is believed to have been
founded in the early 4th millennium BC near the head of the Nile delta, south
of the present city. The city spread to the north along the east bank of the
Nile, and its location has commanded political power ever since. It was there
that the Romans constructed their city called Babylon. Muslim Arabs who
immigrated there from the Arabian Peninsula in AD 641 later called the site Al
Fustat. When a dissident branch of Muslims known as the Fatimid conquered Egypt
in 969, they established their headquarters in the city and called it Al-Qahira
(Cairo). In the 12th century Christian Crusaders attacked Cairo, but they were
defeated by a Muslim army from Syria, led by Saladin, who founded the Ayyubid
Dynasty in the city.
The Mamluke established their capital in Cairo
in the 13th century, and the city became renowned throughout Africa, Asia, and
Europe. Cairo declined after the mid-14th century, however, when the epidemic
of bubonic plague known as the Black Death struck the city, decimating its
population.
The Ottomans conquered Cairo in 1517, and ruled
there until 1798, when the area was captured during an expedition led by
Napoleon I of France. Ottoman rule was restored in 1801, but by the middle of
the 19th century Egypt's foreign debt and the weakness of the Ottoman Empire
invited greater European influence in Cairo. The Viceroy Ismail Pasha, who
ruled from 1863 to 1879, built many European-style structures in the city and
used the occasion of the opening of the Suez Canal northeast of Cairo in 1869
to showcase the city for the European powers. However, much of the development
that took place during this period was funded by foreign loans, which led to an
increase in the national debt and left Cairo vulnerable to control by Great
Britain. The British effectively ruled Egypt from Cairo from the late 19th
century through the period after World War I (1914-1918), when the foreign
presence in Cairo began to diminish.
Cairo's population grew rapidly in the in the
war years, reaching 2 million by the outbreak of World War II in 1939. Since
that time the city has continued to boom in terms of both population and
development. Some of this population growth has resulted from the influx of
refugees from cities along the Suez Canal that were damaged in the Arab-Israeli
wars of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Many new residential, commercial, and
governmental structures have changed the city's landscape. Tourist facilities
have proven an important source of foreign revenue for Egypt, and have thus
drawn heavy investment from the government.
Cairo has also benefited from Egypt's growing
international prominence. The founding of the Arab League in 1945 made Cairo a
political capital, as has Egypt's ongoing participation in the Middle East
peace process. However, in 1981 the city witnessed a tragic event when Egyptian
President Anwar Al-Sadat was assassinated at a military parade by Islamic
fundamentalists within the Egyptian army.
Also, Cairo is an important centre for
publishing and other forms of media. Its newspapers, which include Al-Ahram
(founded in 1875) and Al-Akhbar (1952), exert wide influence within the Islamic
world, as does Radio Cairo. The rich cultural life is further enhanced by local
theatre, cinema, dance, and music, in addition to the city's vibrant community
of journalists and fiction writers; Cairo residents take great pride in the
work of Nobel Prize-winning author and Cairo native Naguib Mahfouz, whose
fiction has provided a chronicle of the city.
Luxor
Located in Upper Egypt Luxor has been described
as the world’s biggest open air museum. Nowadays it has been elevated to the
status of Governorate, though it is still classified as being in the province
of Qena. It has a population of round about 230,000, most of who are employed
in tourism somehow, though there are many who are employed in agriculture and
commerce. It is one of the most popular destinations in Egypt, being one of
those places that you must see. Because of this almost every tourist company
has an office somewhere in the town.
It has been estimated that Luxor contains about
a third of the most valuable monuments and antiquities in the whole world,
which makes it one of this planet’s most important tourism sites. Monuments
such as The Luxor Temple, Karnak Temple, the Valley of the Kings, the Valley of
the Queens, Deir El-Bahri (the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut), the workers
village at Deir El-Medina, the list goes on and on and on. Though most visitors
will stay for just a few days, it would take a substantial amount of time to
visit everything in this amazing town.
Once known as Thebes, Luxor’s importance in
ancient Egyptian history cannot be denied. It was the religious capital for
almost all of the Pharaonic period which is why the town is dominated by the
two temples; The Temple of Luxor, and the immense Temple of Karnak; the world’s
largest temple complex.
Dedicated to Amun Ra, the Temple of Karnak was
constantly expanded by successive pharaohs, each adding his, or her, tribute to
the god. The site dates back to the Middle Kingdom under the reign of
Mentuhotep (11th Dynasty), but most of what can be seen today is from the New
Kingdom. Other parts of the complex include sites dedicated to Mut, the wife of
Amun Ra, and their son Khonsu.
Most people know that Luxor was once Thebes,
but “Thebes” was not what the ancient Egyptians called it. Ancient texts show
that it was called t-apt, which means “the shrine”, with the ancient Greeks
calling it tea pie. The Arabs had problems with pronunciation and so it became
Thebes to them. The name vanished then as the area submitted to the desert and
then by the 10th century Arab travellers thought the ruins were of grand
buildings so started to call it Al-Oksour, or “site of the palaces” which
slowly became Luxor.
Though it was never the capital of a united
Egypt, Thebes was capital of Upper Egypt during the times when Egypt resorted
to being split into two. This was especially true during the period of the
Hyksos invasion when Avaris became capital in the North. Thebes was where the
various pharaohs of Upper Egypt were based, and it was from here that the final
campaign, under Ahmose I, to expel the Hyksos originate
