Cairo, Arabic Al-Qāhira, city, capital of Egypt #shorts

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Cairo, Arabic Al-Qāhirah (“The Victorious”), city, capital of Egypt, and one of the largest cities in Africa. Cairo has stood for more than 1,000 years on the same site on the banks of the Nile, primarily on the eastern shore, some 500 miles (800 km) downstream from the Aswan High Dam. Located in the northeast of the country, Cairo is the gateway to the Nile delta, where the lower Nile separates into the Rosetta and Damietta branches. Metropolitan Cairo is made up of the Cairo muḥāfazah (governorate) as well as other districts, some of which belong to neighbouring governorates such as Al-Jīzah and Qalūbiyyah. Area governorate, 83 square miles (214 square km). Pop. (2006) governorate, 7,902,085; (2017) governorate, 9,539,673; urban agglom., 19,295,000.

The city juxtaposes ancient and new, East and West. The Pyramids of Giza, near Memphis, stand at the southwestern edge of the metropolis, and an obelisk in the northeast marks the site of Heliopolis, where Plato once studied; modern landmarks of Western-style high-rise hotels and apartment buildings overlook the Nile River. Between these extremes are other architectural monuments, dating from Roman, Arab, and Ottoman times. In addition to department stores, cinemas, hotels, and town houses, Cairo contains a large functioning bazaar and an extensive, semi-walled medieval city endowed with more than 400 registered historic monuments—including mosques, mausoleums, and massive stone gates—dating to 130 CE.

Cairo is fan-shaped, narrowest in the south, where the river valley is wedged between desert escarpments, and widest in the north, where the valley blends into the delta. Over the centuries the city expanded westward, as a receding river channel left land flood-free. In response to heightened demand, however, the city also has been elongated to the north and south and has developed an expanding annex on the Nile’s western shore.

Cairo has only two seasons: approximately eight months of summer and four months of winter. In the hottest of the summer months—June, July, and August—the average daily maximum temperature is 95 °F (35 °C), and the average daily minimum is 70 °F (21 °C). The summer temperature has reached as high as 117 °F (47 °C). During winter the strong Tropic of Cancer sun makes for warm, dry days, but nights are cool and humid, often freshened by breezes from the Nile. The average daily maximum temperature in January–February is 67 °F (19 °C), and the average daily minimum is 47 °F (8.5 °C).

The central business district, referred to as the Wasṭ al-Balad (“city centre,” or downtown), is flanked by these older quarters. The Wasṭ al-Balad includes the older Al-Azbakiyyah district, Garden City, and, more recently, Jazīrah, the island offshore. The major thoroughfare connecting the city along its north-south axis is the Kūrnīsh al-Nīl (the Corniche), a highway paralleling the Nile River, built in the 1950s. Along the Corniche lie the Maspero Television Building, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and a number of hotels; in addition, the Egyptian Museum is nearby. Near the museum lies Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the 2011 uprising; overlooking the plaza are the massive Mogamma government building and the Arab League headquarters. Jazīrah, across the Nile from the Corniche, is the site of the Cairo Tower, public gardens, a racetrack, two major sporting clubs, several major hotels, and some of the city’s most valuable real estate. Between the imposing Nile riverfront and the ancient inland quarters is a transitional working-class zone, chiefly developed in the 19th century; the National Library, the Museum of Islamic Art, and the presidential palace and archives later came to populate this region.

Along the eastern edge of the metropolis stands the district of Al-Qarāfah (City of the Dead), a unique zone made up of an extensive series of cemeteries. In this vast, dusty, ochre-coloured district stand the exquisite shrine-mosques and mausoleums of early religious leaders such as Imam al-Shāfiʿī, the founder of Egypt’s major legal tradition. The major monuments of these eastern cemeteries are Mamluk in design, each topped by a plain or fluted dome; lesser tombs are simpler, rectangular constructions. Owing to the rapid population growth that occurred following Egypt’s independence in 1922, however, housing and shops have sprung up in the City of the Dead, where it is estimated that more than one million Cairenes live, many without municipal utilities or an official address.

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