Cairo Egypt Modern

Cairo — capital of Egypt, with a metropolitan population of 21 million (the largest in Africa and the Arab world) — is one of history's most layered cities, where the ancient, medieval, and modern collide. The Pyramids of Giza (4,500 years old) are visible from Cairo's suburbs; medieval Islamic Cairo (Al-Qahira, founded 969 CE by the Fatimid caliphate) contains the world's oldest functioning university (Al-Azhar, 970 CE) and one of the world's largest medieval Islamic urban landscapes; and the modern city deals with the contradictions of rapid population growth, extreme poverty, vast wealth, and the political turbulence of the Arab Spring. Cairo's geography is defined by the Nile — Egypt's only significant water source in one of the world's driest countries. The Nile Delta (where the river fans into the Mediterranean) is one of the world's most fertile agricultural areas but is threatened by sea level rise (will be substantially submerged by 2100 at current trajectories) and reduced sediment flow (Aswan High Dam, 1970, stops the annual flood that deposited fertile silt). The Egyptian Museum in Cairo houses the world's greatest collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts, including the treasures of Tutankhamun's tomb (discovered 1922).