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World > Countries > Egypt

Egypt

Facts & Figures

Map of Egypt

Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces: Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi (2011)

Prime Minister: Kamal al-Ganzouri (2011)

Land area: 384,344 sq mi (995,451 sq km); total area: 386,662 sq mi (1,001,450 sq km)

Population (2010 est.): 80,471,869 (growth rate: 1.9%); birth rate: 25.0/1000; infant mortality rate: 26.2/1000; life expectancy: 72.4; density per sq km: 82

Capital and largest city (2003 est.): Cairo, 11,146,000 (metro. area), 7,629,866 (city proper)

Other large cities: Alexandria, 3,891,000; Giza, 2,597,600 (part of Cairo metro. area); Shubra el Khema, 1,018,000 (part of Cairo metro. area); El Mahalla el Kubra, 462,300

Monetary unit: Egyptian pound

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Geography

Egypt, at the northeast corner of Africa on the Mediterranean Sea, is bordered on the west by Libya, on the south by the Sudan, and on the east by the Red Sea and Israel. It is nearly one and one-half times the size of Texas. Egypt is divided into two unequal, extremely arid regions by the landscape's dominant feature, the northward-flowing Nile River. The Nile starts 100 mi (161 km) south of the Mediterranean and fans out to a sea front of 155 mi between the cities of Alexandria and Port Said.

Government

Republic.

History

Egyptian history dates back to about 4000 B.C. , when the kingdoms of upper and lower Egypt, already highly sophisticated, were united. Egypt's golden age coincided with the 18th and 19th dynasties (16th to 13th century B.C. ), during which the empire was established. Persia conquered Egypt in 525 B.C. , Alexander the Great subdued it in 332 B.C. , and then the dynasty of the Ptolemies ruled the land until 30 B.C. , when Cleopatra, last of the line, committed suicide and Egypt became a Roman, then Byzantine, province. Arab caliphs ruled Egypt from 641 until 1517, when the Turks took it for their Ottoman Empire.

Napoléon's armies occupied the country from 1798 to 1801. In 1805, Mohammed Ali, leader of a band of Albanian soldiers, became pasha of Egypt. After completion of the Suez Canal in 1869, the French and British took increasing interest in Egypt. British troops occupied Egypt in 1882, and British resident agents became its actual administrators, though it remained under nominal Turkish sovereignty. In 1914, this fiction was ended, and Egypt became a protectorate of Britain.

Egyptian nationalism, led by Zaghlul Pasha and the Wafd Party, forced Britain to relinquish its claims on the country. Egypt became an independent sovereign state on Feb. 28, 1922, with Fu'ad I as its king. In 1936, by an Anglo-Egyptian treaty of alliance, all British troops and officials were to be withdrawn, except from the Suez Canal Zone. When World War II started, Egypt remained neutral.