Ancient settlements , late 3rd century, in
Old Cairo|left The area around present-day Cairo had long been a focal point of
Ancient Egypt due to its strategic location at the junction of the
Nile Valley and the
Nile Delta regions (roughly
Upper Egypt and
Lower Egypt), which also placed it at the crossing of major routes between
North Africa and the
Levant.
Memphis, the capital of Egypt during the
Old Kingdom and a major city up until the
Ptolemaic period, was located a short distance south west of present-day Cairo.
Heliopolis, another important city and major religious center, was located in what are now the modern districts of
Matariya and
Ain Shams in northeastern Cairo. It was largely destroyed by the
Persian invasions in 525 BC and 343 BC and partly abandoned by the late first century BC. However, the origins of modern Cairo are generally traced back to a series of settlements in the first millennium AD. Around the turn of the fourth century, as Memphis was continuing to decline in importance, the
Romans established a large fortress along the east bank of the
Nile. The trading post of
Babylon, first mentioned in 50 BC, became a fortress, built by the Roman emperor
Diocletian (r. 285–305) at the entrance of a canal connecting the Nile to the
Red Sea that was created earlier by Emperor
Trajan (r. 98–117). Further north of the fortress, near the present-day district of
al-Azbakiya, was a
port and fortified outpost known as Tendunyas () or Umm Dunayn. While no structures older than the 7th century have been preserved in the area aside from the Roman fortifications, historical evidence suggests that a sizeable city existed. The city was important enough that its
bishop, Cyrus, participated in the
Second Council of Ephesus in 449. The
Byzantine-Sassanian War between 602 and 628 caused great hardship and likely led much of the urban population to leave for the countryside, leaving the settlement partly deserted. The site today remains at the nucleus of the
Coptic Orthodox community, which separated from the Roman and Byzantine churches in the late 4th century. Cairo's oldest extant churches, such as the
Church of Saint Barbara and the
Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus (from the late 7th or early 8th century), are located inside the fortress walls in what is now known as
Old Cairo or
Coptic Cairo.
Fustat and other early Islamic settlements , 2004 The
Muslim conquest of Byzantine Egypt was led by
Amr ibn al-As from 639 to 642. Babylon Fortress was besieged in September 640 and fell in April 641. In 641 or early 642, after the surrender of
Alexandria, the Egyptian capital at the time, he founded a new settlement next to Babylon Fortress. The city, known as
Fustat (), served as a garrison town and as the new administrative capital of Egypt. Historians such as
Janet Abu-Lughod and
André Raymond trace the genesis of present-day Cairo to the foundation of Fustat. The choice of founding a new settlement at this inland location, instead of using the existing capital of Alexandria on the
Mediterranean coast, may have been due to the new conquerors' strategic priorities. One of the first projects of the new Muslim administration was to clear and re-open Trajan's ancient
canal in order to ship grain more directly from Egypt to
Medina, the capital of the
caliphate in
Arabia. Ibn al-As also founded a mosque for the city at the same time, now known as the
Mosque of Amr Ibn al-As, the oldest mosque in Egypt and Africa (although the current structure dates from later expansions). in Cairo, built by the order of the
Abbasid caliph
al-Mutawakkil (r. 847–861)|left In 750, following the overthrow of the
Umayyad Caliphate by the
Abbasids, the new rulers created their own settlement to the northeast of Fustat which became the new provincial capital. This was known as
al-Askar () as it was laid out like a military camp. A governor's residence and a new mosque were also added, with the latter completed in 786. The Red Sea canal re-excavated in the 7th century was closed by the Abbasid Caliph
al-Mansur (), but a part of the canal, known as the
Khalij, continued to be a major feature of Cairo's geography and of its water supply until the 19th century. In 870, he used his growing wealth to found a new administrative capital,
al-Qata'i (), to the northeast of Fustat and of al-Askar. During that time, the construction of the
al-Azhar Mosque was commissioned by order of the caliph, which developed into the third-oldest university in the world. Cairo would eventually become a centre of learning, with the library of Cairo containing hundreds of thousands of books. When Caliph al-Mu'izz arrived from the old Fatimid capital of
Mahdia in Tunisia in 973, he gave the city its present name, ''Qāhirat al-Mu'izz'' ("The Vanquisher of al-Mu'izz"), from which the name "Cairo" (
al-Qāhira) originates. The caliphs lived in a vast and lavish
palace complex that occupied the heart of the city. Cairo remained a relatively exclusive royal city for most of this era, but during the tenure of
Badr al-Gamali as
vizier (1073–1094) the restrictions were loosened for the first time and richer families from Fustat were allowed to move into the city. Between 1087 and 1092 Badr al-Gamali also rebuilt the
city walls in stone and constructed the city gates of
Bab al-Futuh,
Bab al-Nasr, and
Bab Zuweila that still stand today. During the Fatimid period Fustat reached its apogee in size and prosperity, acting as a center of craftsmanship and international trade and as the area's main port on the Nile. Historical sources report that multi-story communal residences existed in the city, particularly in its center, which were typically inhabited by middle and lower-class residents. Some of these were as high as seven stories and could house some 200 to 350 people. They may have been similar to Roman
insulae and may have been the prototypes for the rental apartment complexes which became common in the later Mamluk and
Ottoman periods. However, in 1168 the Fatimid vizier
Shawar set fire to the unfortified Fustat to prevent its potential capture by
Amalric, the
Crusader king of
Jerusalem. While the fire did not destroy the city and it continued to exist afterward, it did mark the beginning of its decline. Over the following centuries it was Cairo, the former palace-city, that became the new economic center and attracted migration from Fustat. , seen above in the 19th century, commissioned in 1176|alt=A multi-domed mosque dominates the walled Citadel, with ruined tombs and a lone minaret in front. While the Crusaders did not capture the city in 1168, a continuing power struggle between Shawar, King Amalric, and the
Zengid general
Shirkuh led to the downfall of the Fatimid establishment. In 1169, Shirkuh's nephew
Saladin was appointed as the new vizier of Egypt by the Fatimids, and two years later, he seized power from the family of the last Fatimid caliph,
al-'Āḍid. As the first
Sultan of Egypt, Saladin established the
Ayyubid dynasty, based in Cairo, and aligned Egypt with the
Sunni Abbasids, who were based in
Baghdad. In 1176, Saladin began construction on the
Cairo Citadel, which was to serve as the seat of the Egyptian government until the mid-19th century. The construction of the Citadel definitively ended Fatimid-built Cairo's status as an exclusive palace-city and opened it up to common Egyptians and to foreign merchants, spurring its commercial development. Along with the Citadel, Saladin also began the construction of a new 20-kilometre-long wall that would protect both Cairo and Fustat on their eastern side and connect them with the new Citadel. These construction projects continued beyond Saladin's lifetime and were completed under his Ayyubid successors.
Further expansion and decline under the Ayyubids and Mamluks of
Sultan Qalawun, built in 1284–1285 in the center of Cairo, over the remains of a Fatimid palace In 1250, during the
Seventh Crusade, the Ayyubid dynasty had a crisis with the death of
al-Salih and power transitioned instead to the
Mamluks, partly with the help of al-Salih's wife,
Shajar ad-Durr, who ruled for a brief period around this time. Mamluks were soldiers who were purchased as young slaves and raised to serve in the sultan's army. Between 1250 and 1517 the throne of the
Mamluk Sultanate passed from one mamluk to another in a system of succession that was generally non-hereditary, but also frequently violent and chaotic. The Mamluk Empire nonetheless became a major power in the region and was responsible for repelling the advance of the
Mongols (most famously at the
Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260) and for eliminating the last
Crusader states in the Levant. Despite their military character, the Mamluks were also prolific builders and left a rich
architectural legacy throughout Cairo. These apartments were often laid out as multi-story
duplexes or triplexes. They were sometimes attached to caravanserais, where the two lower floors were for commercial and storage purposes and the multiple stories above them were rented out to tenants. The oldest partially-preserved example of this type of structure is the Wikala of Amir
Qawsun, built before 1341. Although Cairo avoided
Europe's stagnation during the
Late Middle Ages, it could not escape the Black Death, which struck the city more than fifty times between 1348 and 1517. During its initial and most deadly waves, approximately 200,000 people were killed by the plague, and by the 15th century, Cairo's population had been reduced to between 150,000 and 300,000. The population decline was accompanied by a period of political instability between 1348 and 1412. It was nonetheless in this period that the largest Mamluk-era religious monument, the
Madrasa-Mosque of Sultan Hasan, was built. In the late 14th century, the
Burji Mamluks replaced the
Bahri Mamluks as rulers of the Mamluk state, but the Mamluk system continued to decline. Though the plagues returned frequently throughout the 15th century, Cairo remained a major metropolis and its population recovered in part through
rural migration. More conscious efforts were conducted by rulers and city officials to redress the city's infrastructure and cleanliness. Its economy and politics also became more deeply connected with the wider Mediterranean. Some Mamluk sultans in this period, such as
Barbsay (r. 1422–1438) and
Qaytbay (r. 1468–1496), had relatively long and successful reigns. After al-Nasir Muhammad, Qaytbay was one of the most prolific patrons of art and architecture of the Mamluk era. He built or restored numerous monuments in Cairo, in addition to commissioning projects beyond Egypt. The crisis of Mamluk power and of Cairo's economic role deepened after Qaytbay. The city's status was diminished after
Vasco da Gama discovered a sea route around the
Cape of Good Hope between 1497 and 1499, thereby allowing spice traders to avoid Cairo.
Ottoman rule '' Cairo's political influence diminished significantly after the
Ottomans defeated
Sultan al-Ghuri in the
Battle of Marj Dabiq in 1516 and
conquered Egypt in 1517. Ruling from
Constantinople,
Sultan Selim I relegated Egypt to a
province, with Cairo as its capital. For this reason, the history of Cairo during the Ottoman era is often described as inconsequential, especially in comparison to other time periods. During the 16th and 17th centuries, Cairo still remained an important economic and cultural centre. Although no longer on the spice route, the city facilitated the transportation of
Yemeni
coffee and
Indian
textiles, primarily to
Anatolia,
North Africa, and the
Balkans. Cairene merchants were instrumental in bringing goods to the barren
Hejaz, especially during the annual
hajj to
Mecca. It was during this same period that
al-Azhar University attained a predominance among Islamic schools that it continues to hold today; pilgrims on their way to hajj often attested to the superiority of the institution, which had become associated with Egypt's body of
Islamic scholars. The first printing press of the Middle East, printing in
Hebrew, was established in Cairo by a scion of the
Soncino family of printers,
Italian Jews of
Ashkenazi origin who operated a press in Constantinople. The existence of the press is known solely from two fragments discovered in the
Cairo Geniza. (1848–1933).
On the Way Between Old and New Cairo, Citadel Mosque of Mohammed Ali, and Tombs of the Mamelukes, 1872. Oil on canvas.
Brooklyn Museum. Under the Ottomans, Cairo expanded south and west from its nucleus around the Citadel. The city was the second-largest in the empire, behind Constantinople, and, although migration was not the primary source of Cairo's growth, twenty percent of its population at the end of the 18th century consisted of religious minorities and foreigners from around the
Mediterranean. Still, when
Napoleon arrived in Cairo in 1798, the city's population was less than 300,000, forty percent lower than it was at the height of Mamluk—and Cairene—influence in the mid-14th century. The
French occupation was short-lived as
British and Ottoman forces, including a sizeable
Albanian contingent, recaptured the country in 1801. Cairo itself
was besieged by a British and Ottoman force culminating with the French surrender on 22 June 1801. The British vacated Egypt two years later, leaving the Ottomans, the Albanians, and the long-weakened
Mamluks jostling for control of the country. Continued civil war allowed an Albanian named
Muhammad Ali Pasha to ascend to the role of
commander and eventually, with the approval of the
religious establishment, viceroy of Egypt in 1805.
Modern era Until his death in 1848,
Muhammad Ali Pasha instituted a number of social and economic reforms that earned him the title of founder of modern Egypt. However, while Muhammad Ali initiated the construction of public buildings in the city, those reforms had minimal effect on Cairo's landscape. Bigger changes came to Cairo under
Isma'il Pasha (r. 1863–1879), who continued the modernisation processes started by his grandfather. Drawing inspiration from
Paris, Isma'il envisioned a city of
maidans and wide avenues; due to financial constraints, only some of them, in the area now composing
Downtown Cairo, came to fruition. Isma'il also sought to modernise the city, which was merging with neighbouring settlements, by establishing a
public works ministry, bringing
gas and lighting to the city, and opening a theatre and opera house. The immense debt resulting from Isma'il's projects provided a pretext for increasing European control, which culminated with the
British invasion in 1882. The city's economic centre quickly moved west toward the
Nile, away from the historic
Islamic Cairo section and toward the contemporary, European-style areas built by Isma'il. Europeans accounted for five percent of Cairo's population at the end of the 19th century, by which point they held most top governmental positions. (center left), and
Downtown (lower right), as well as
Bulaq (upper right). In 1906, the
Heliopolis Oasis Company headed by the
Belgian industrialist
Édouard Empain and his Egyptian counterpart
Boghos Nubar, built a suburb called
Heliopolis (city of the sun in Greek) ten kilometers from the center of Cairo. In 1905–1907 the northern part of the
Gezira island was developed by the Baehler Company into
Zamalek, which would later become Cairo's upscale "chic" neighbourhood. In 1906 construction began on
Garden City, a neighbourhood of urban villas with gardens and curved streets. The British occupation was intended to be temporary, but it lasted well into the 20th century. Nationalists staged
large-scale demonstrations in Cairo in 1919, five years after Egypt had been declared a British
protectorate. Nevertheless, this led to Egypt's
independence in 1922. The
King Fuad I Edition of the
Qur'an was first published on 10 July 1924 in Cairo under the patronage of
King Fuad. The goal of the government of the newly formed
Kingdom of Egypt was not to delegitimise the other variant Quranic texts ("
qira'at"), but to eliminate errors found in Qur'anic texts used in state schools. A committee of teachers chose to preserve a single one of the canonical qira'at "readings", namely that of the "
Ḥafṣ" version, an 8th-century
Kufic recitation. This edition has become the standard for modern printings of the Quran for much of the Islamic world. The publication has been called a "terrific success", and the edition has been described as one "now widely seen as the official text of the Qur'an", so popular among both Sunni and Shi'a that the common belief among less well-informed Muslims is "that the Qur'an has a single, unambiguous reading". Minor amendments were made later in 1924 and in 1936 - the "Faruq edition" in honour of then ruler,
King Faruq.
British occupation until 1956 British troops remained in the country until 1956. During this time, urban Cairo, spurred by new bridges and transport links, continued to expand to include the upscale neighbourhoods of
Garden City,
Zamalek, and
Heliopolis. Between 1882 and 1937, the population of Cairo more than tripled—from 347,000 to 1.3 million —and its area increased from . The city was devastated during the 1952 riots known as the
Cairo Fire or Black Saturday, which saw the destruction of nearly 700 shops, movie theatres, casinos and hotels in downtown Cairo. The British departed Cairo following the
Egyptian Revolution of 1952, but the city's rapid growth showed no signs of abating. Seeking to accommodate the increasing population,
President Gamal Abdel Nasser redeveloped
Tahrir Square and the Nile
Corniche, and improved the city's network of bridges and highways. Meanwhile, additional controls of the Nile fostered development within Gezira Island and along the city's waterfront. The metropolis began to encroach on the fertile
Nile Delta, prompting the government to build desert
satellite towns and devise incentives for city-dwellers to move to them.
After 1956 in Cairo, 1965 In the second half of the 20th century, Cairo continued to grow enormously in both population and area. Between 1947 and 2006, the population of
Greater Cairo went from 2,986,280 to 16,292,269. The population explosion also drove the rise of "informal" housing ('''ashwa'iyyat''), meaning housing that was built without any official planning or control. The exact form of this type of housing varies considerably but usually has a much higher population density than formal housing. By 2009, over 63% of the population of Greater Cairo lived in informal neighbourhoods, even though these occupied only 17% of the total area of Greater Cairo. According to economist David Sims, informal housing has the benefits of providing affordable accommodation and vibrant communities to huge numbers of Cairo's working classes, but it also suffers from government neglect, a relative lack of services, and overcrowding. The "formal" city was also expanded. The most notable example was the creation of
Madinat Nasr, a huge government-sponsored expansion of the city to the east which officially began in 1959 but was primarily developed in the mid-1970s. In 1979, the government established the
New Urban Communities Authority (NUCA) to initiate and direct the development of
new towns on the outskirts of Cairo, generally established on desert land. These new satellite cities were intended to provide housing, investment, and employment opportunities for the region's growing population as well as to pre-empt the further growth of informal neighbourhoods.
2011 Egyptian revolution that started on 25 January 2011 Cairo's
Tahrir Square was the focal point of the
2011 Egyptian revolution against former president
Hosni Mubarak. More than 50,000 protesters first occupied the square on 25 January, during which the area's wireless services were reported to be impaired. In the following days, Tahrir Square continued to be the primary destination for protests in Cairo. The uprising was mainly a campaign of non-violent civil resistance, which featured a series of demonstrations, marches, acts of civil disobedience, and labour strikes. Millions of protesters from a variety of socio-economic and religious backgrounds demanded the overthrow of the regime of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Despite being predominantly peaceful in nature, the revolution was not without violent clashes between security forces and protesters, with at least 846 people killed and 6,000 injured. The uprising took place in Cairo, Alexandria, and in other cities in Egypt, following the
Tunisian revolution that resulted in the overthrow of the long-time
Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. ==Geography==