
The world’s largest capital located in a desert, Cairo is also Africa’s most populous city and the biggest in the Arab World.
Cairo’s nickname is “City of Thousand Minarets” recognizing its hundreds of ubiquitous mosques. A minaret is a tower that is part of or adjacent to a mosque. Another nickname for Egypt’s capital city is “Mother of the World” reflecting its deep history.
Constructed to moderate the Egyptian capital’s traffic jams, Cairo’s Tahya Misr Bridge was recognized by the Guinness World Records as the widest cable-stayed bridge on Earth.
Cairo was the site for another Guinness World Record for the longest table anywhere. The record-setting table was 10,465 feet 7 inches long (almost 2 miles or nearly 3.2 kilometers), and was used to serve an evening meal to 7,000 people on June 2, 2019.
The Great Pyramid of Giza located in Cairo is the sole out of the 7 ancient wonders of the world still in existence. Cairo’s biggest pyramid was built from two million blocks of stone and required over 20 years to complete.
Research website numbeo ranks Cairo in the bottom 5% compared to the 250 cities evaluated on its overall quality of life index at June 2020. Cairo scored poorly on index factors such as health care (bottom 2%), pollution (worst 3%), purchasing power (lowest 3%), traffic commute time (slowest 9%), safety (most dangerous 33%) and property price to income ratio (most expensive 33%).
From an international trade perspective, exports from Egypt totaled US$30.6 billion in 2019. Its most valuable exports are refined petroleum oils (15% of Egypt’s global total), gold (6.7%), crude petroleum oil (6.3%), petroleum gas (4.5%), nitrogenous fertilizers (3.8%), monitors and projectors (2.7%), and fresh or dried miscellaneous citrus fruit (2.4%) according to the International Trade Centre.
Capital Facts for Cairo, Egypt: Quick Reference
Geography
Capital landmarks: Citadel (Al-Qalaa), Great Sphinx and Cairo Tower
Famous People
Below, you will find 10 of the most famous people born in Cairo, Egypt.
- Atom Egoyan, director & producer (born Jul. 19, 1960)
- Julian Fellowes, actor & writer (born Aug. 17, 1949)
- Mohamed ElBaradei, Nobel Peace Prize winner (born Jun. 17, 1942)
- Amr Waked, actor, director & producer (born Apr. 12, 1973)
- Jehane Noujaim, director & cinematographer (born May 17, 1974)
- Ahmed el-Sakka, actor (born Mar. 1, 1973)
- Sir John Anthony Kershaw, British parliamentarian (born Dec. 14, 1915)
- Gamil Ratib, actor (born Nov. 28, 1926)
- Mohamed Elmasry, engineering professor (born Dec. 24, 1943)
- Yasser Arafat, Palestinian leader (born Aug. 4, 1929)
Note: Data for our Famous People tab was sourced from Google searches mostly targeting published Wikipedia articles specific to each person’s name.
Population
Demonym for a Cairo resident: Cairene
Population: 20,900,604 (Greater Cairo metropolitan area) at July 28, 2020
Density: 3,135 people per square mile (1,210 per square kilometer)
Population: 102,487,472 (Egypt) at July 28, 2020
Density: 266 people per square mile (103 per square kilometer)
Median age for all Egypt: 24.6 years old
Financial
GDP: US$1.391 trillion in 2019 (Egypt)
GDP per person: $14,023
Note: The above GDP metrics are on a Purchasing Power Parity basis and are in U.S. dollars.
Official currency used in Cairo: Egyptian pound
Research
Research Sources:
Brookings Institution, Global Metro Monitor Report (includes GDP data).
Central Intelligence Agency, World Factbook, Africa: Egypt.
Central Intelligence Agency, World Factbook, Field Listing: Major Urban Areas.
CityMetric, Where are largest cities in the world? 2015 edition.
Guinness World Records, Egypt’s claims new record for widest cable-stayed bridge.
Guinness World Records, Largest food court record set in Egypt.
Guinness World Records, Longest table.
International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook Databases.
International Trade Centre, Trade Map.
Numbeo, Quality of Life Index by City.
Official Government Website, Cairo Governorate.
Wikimedia Commons, City Flags.
Note: Some city flags were unavailable. If so, attribution belongs to Wikimedia Commons for pertinent country flags.
Wikipedia, Cairo.
Wikipedia, Greater Cairo.
Wikipedia, New Cairo.
WorldOMeter, Egypt Population.
World Population Review, Cairo Population 2020.
The revolution that resulted in Egypt’s status as a republic started on July 23, 1952. Egyptians celebrate Revolution Day each July 23 as a national public holiday.
The Greater Cairo metropolitan area includes the city of Cairo, New Cairo city, Giza, Shubra El-Kheima, 6th of October City and Obour City. The metropolitan population is 20.9 million people living over 6,667.1 square miles (17,267.6 square kilometers).
At the country level, Egypt’s land territory covers 384,345 square miles (995,450 square kilometers). The nation’s population was 102.5 million inhabitants as of July 2020.
Population density within the larger Greater Cairo metropolitan area averages 3,135 people per square mile (1,210 per square kilometer).
Zooming out to Egypt’s overall land boundaries, population density dilutes to an average 266 inhabitants per square mile (103 per square kilometer).