Cairo

Cairo ; , . Also known colloquially in Egypt as '''' ().}} is the capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world, and the Middle East. The Greater Cairo metropolitan area is one of the largest in the world by population with over 22 million people.

The area that would become Cairo was part of ancient Egypt, as the Giza pyramid complex and the ancient cities of Memphis and Heliopolis are near-by. Located near the Nile Delta, the predecessor settlement was Fustat following the Muslim conquest of Egypt in 641 next to an existing ancient Roman fortress, Babylon. Subsequently, Cairo was founded by the Fatimid dynasty in 969. It later superseded Fustat as the main urban centre during the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods (12th–16th centuries).

Cairo has since become a longstanding centre of political and cultural life, and is titled "the city of a thousand minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture. Cairo's historic center was awarded World Heritage Site status in 1979. The city is considered a regional center of finance and commerce, academics and the arts, and is home to Cairo Symphony Orchestra and the Cairo Opera House, while the Academy of Arts provides visual arts education. Cairo has the oldest and largest film and music industry in Africa and the Arab world, as well as Egypt's oldest institution of higher learning, Al-Azhar University. Many international media, businesses, and organizations have regional headquarters in Cairo, such as headquarters of the Arab League, the regional offices of the World Health Organization, Food and Agriculture Organization, International Civil Aviation Organization, International Telecommunication Union, United Nations Population Fund, UN Women, United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, African Space Agency, and also the headquarters of FIBA Africa.

Cairo is a key global city, like many other megacities, suffers from high levels of pollution and traffic. The Cairo Metro, opened in 1987, is the oldest metro system in Africa, and ranks amongst the fifteen busiest in the world, with over 1 billion annual passenger rides. The economy of Cairo was ranked first in the Middle East in 2005 on ''Foreign Policy'' Global Cities Index, and first in Africa in 2025 according to International Monetary Fund, and continues to be a major destination for foreign direct investment (FDI) due to its massive consumer market and strategic location. Provided by Wikipedia