Egypt » Cairo

Cairo is the capital city of Egypt (and previously the United Arab Republic) and has a metropolitan area population of approximately 15.2 million people, the largest in Africa. There are, however, millions of homeless and undocumented citizens. 

While al-Qahirah is the official name of the city, in local speech it is typically called simply by the name of the country, pronounced Masr in the local dialect. 

This title was given to the city as many armies were destroyed in attempts to invade Cairo or defeated elsewhere by troops sent from Cairo. (Mongols, Crusaders & Ottomans are examples.)  

The high population density and lack of room to move throws up startling juxtapositions: mud-brick houses and towering modern office buildings, flashy cars and donkey-drawn carts. Cairenes see nothing strange in this. 

They aren't driven by the Western obsession to update and upgrade, possibly because they live in such close proximity to a millennia of history (the Pyramids are visible from the upper storeys of buildings all over the city). The resulting pervasive sense of timelessness is one of the city's great charms. 

Cairo, Egypt is an amazing city full of life and movement, and it is that way almost 24 hours every day, with the noisy honking of horns, children playing in the streets and merchants selling their wears and services. And here, the Egyptians are most at home in this powerful, modern and ancient city.  

Cairo is the administrative centre of Egypt, but like the rest of the country, statistical information about the city is sometimes difficult. Certainly we can produce relatively accurate figures on such topics as land area, temperature and average rainfall, but the population, and particularly statistics about the population are problematic because it is so large and much of its populations live, so to speak, under the radar of the government.