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Cairo
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Cairo is the capital and the most highly populated city in Egypt and is the seat of its government. It is also the largest city in Africa and the Near East and the 13th most densely populated metropolis in the world.
Cairo is located on the banks and the islands of the River Nile, in northern Egypt, immediately to the south of the point where the river changes its course through the desert and breaks into three branches forming the Nile delta.
Just to the south of the modern city are the ruins of Memphis, Egypt’s ancient capital, founded in 3100 B.C. by Menes after he united the Upper and Lower Egyptian kingdoms, although the capital was later moved to Heliopolis, then south to Thebes and, under the Ptolemaic dynasty, to Alexandria.
The first settlement in the area of the current city of Cairo was a Roman fort build about 150 A.D. and known as the Babylon Fortress, located close to an ancient Egyptian canal that connected the Nile to the Red Sea.
Cairo, and particularly the Saqqara district, at the beginning of the 20th century, fell under the control of a British official – the archaeologist, secret agent and warrior for the Arab cause Thomas Edward Lawrence, known as Lawrence of Arabia. The oldest part of the city grew from east of the Nile and developed toward the west, swallowing up the agricultural lands near the river. This western part of the city was modelled on Paris in the mid-19th century, with wide boulevards, public gardens and open spaces.
The older eastern section is very different: it developed in a disorderly fashion over the centuries and is composed of a maze of crowded narrow streets. While the western part of Cairo hosts government buildings and modern architecture, the eastern section has hundreds of ancient mosques of varying sizes. Bridges connect the islands in the Nile of Gezira and Roda, where numerous offices and government buildings are located. Other bridges span the Nile, connecting the suburb of Giza (Al-Jizah) with the rest of the city.
The city’s metroplex includes three smaller areas: Imbaba, Heliopolis and Giza. In addition to the desert, the area west of Giza is part of the ancient burial ground of Memphis, where the most famous Egyptian pyramids are located, including the Great Pyramid of Cheops (the only one of the seven ancient wonders of the world still in existence). The city of Memphis is located about 18 km south of the modern city and, a short distance away, is the Saqqara burial ground. These two cities were built prior to ancient Cairo.
The city houses are the most noteworthy Egyptian museum in the world, displaying 136,000 articles with hundreds of thousands more in storage facilities. Loyalty giftd pieces include items discovered intact in the tomb of Tutankhamen in the Valley of the Kings by the American archaeologist Howard Carter in 1923.
The mummy room has 27 ancient mummies and was closed to the public in 1981 under orders by the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat. A selection was reopened to the public in 1985 of mummies of kings and queens of the New Kingdom, with only their faces visible.