ABOUT EGYPT

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt , is a country in North
Africa . The Sinai Peninsula is part of northeastern Egypt , which also
forms a land bridge to Asia . Covering an area of about 1,001,450
square kilometers (386,660 sq mi), Egypt borders Libya to the west,
Sudan to the south and the Gaza Strip and Israel to the east. The
northern coast borders the Mediterranean Sea ; the eastern coast
borders the Red Sea .

Egypt is one of the most populous countries in Africa and the Middle
East . The great majority of its estimated 75 million live near the
banks of the Nile River , in an area of about 40,000 square kilometers
(15,000 sq mi), where the only arable agricultural land is found. The
large areas of the Sahara Desert are sparsely inhabited. About half of
Egypt 's residents live in urban areas, with the majority spread across
the densely-populated centres of greater Cairo , Alexandria and other
major cities in the Nile Delta.

Egypt is famous for its ancient civilization and some of the world's
most famous monuments, including the Giza pyramid complex and its
Great Sphinx. The southern city of Luxor contains numerous ancient
artifacts, such as the Karnak Temple and the Valley of the Kings .
Egypt is widely regarded as an important political and cultural nation
of the Middle East .



HISTORY

Evidence of human habitation in the Nile Valley since the Paleolithic
era appears in the form of artifacts and rock carvings along the Nile
terraces and in the desert oases. In the 10th millennium BC, a culture
of hunter-gatherers and fishers replaced a grain-grinding culture.
Climate changes and/or overgrazing around 8000 BC began to desiccate
the pastoral lands of Egypt , forming the Sahara . Early tribal peoples
migrated to the Nile River where they developed a settled agricultural
economy and more centralized society.

By about 6000 BC, organized agriculture and large building
construction had appeared in the Nile Valley. During
the Neolithic era, several predynastic cultures developed
independently in Upper and Lower Egypt . The Badarian culture and the
successor Naqada series are generally regarded as precursors to
Dynastic Egyptian civilization. The earliest known Lower Egyptian
site, Merimda, predates the Badarian by about seven hundred years.
Contemporaneous Lower Egyptian communities coexisted with their
southern counterparts for more than two thousand years, remaining
somewhat culturally separate, but maintaining frequent contact through
trade. The earliest known evidence of Egyptian hieroglyphic
inscriptions appeared during the predynastic period on Naqada III
pottery vessels, dated to about 3200 BC.

A unified kingdom was founded circa 3150 BC by King Menes, giving rise
to a series of dynasties that ruled Egypt for the next three
millennia. Egyptians subsequently referred to their unified country as
tawy, meaning "two lands", and later kemet (Coptic: kimi), the "black
land", a reference to the fertile black soil deposited by the Nile
river. Egyptian culture flourished during this long period and
remained distinctively Egyptian in its religion, arts, language and
customs. The first two ruling dynasties of a unified Egypt set the
stage for the Old Kingdom period, c.2700-2200 BC., famous for its many
pyramids, most notably the Third Dynasty pyramid of Djoser and the
Fourth Dynasty Giza Pyramids.


The First Intermediate Period ushered in a time of political upheaval
for about 150 years. Stronger Nile floods and stabilization of
government, however, brought back renewed prosperity for the country
in the Middle Kingdom c. 2040 BC, reaching a peak during the reign of
Pharaoh Amenemhat III. A second period of disunity heralded the
arrival of the first foreign ruling dynasty in Egypt , that of the
Semitic Hyksos. The Hyksos invaders took over much of Lower Egypt
around 1650 BC and founded a new capital at Avaris. They were driven
out by an Upper Egyptian force led by Ahmose I, who founded the
Eighteenth Dynasty and relocated the capital from Memphis to Thebes .
The New Kingdom (c.1550-1070 BC) began with the Eighteenth Dynasty,
marking the rise of Egypt as an international power that expanded
during its greatest extension to an empire as far south as Jebel
Barkal in Nubia, and included parts of the Levant in the east. This
period is noted for some of the most well-known Pharaohs, including
Hatshepsut, Thutmose III, Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti,
Tutankhamun and Ramesses II. The first known self-conscious expression
of monotheism came during this period in the form of Atenism. Frequent
contacts with other nations brought new ideas to the New Kingdom . The
country was later invaded by Libyans, Nubians and Assyrians, but
native Egyptians drove them out and regained control of their country.


The Thirtieth Dynasty was the last native ruling dynasty during the
Pharaonic epoch. It fell to the Persians in 343 BC after the last
native Pharaoh, King Nectanebo II, was defeated in battle. Later,
Egypt fell to the Greeks and Romans, beginning over two thousand years
of foreign rule.

Before Egypt became part of the Byzantine realm, Christianity had been
brought by Saint Mark the Evangelist in the AD first century.
Diocletian's reign marked the transition from the Roman to the
Byzantine era in Egypt , when a great number of Egyptian Christians
were persecuted. The New Testament had by then been translated into
Egyptian. After the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, a distinct
Egyptian Coptic Church was firmly established.

The Byzantines were able to regain control of the country after a
brief Persian invasion early in the seventh century, until in AD 639,
Egypt was invaded by the Muslim Arabs. The form of Islam the Arabs
brought to Egypt was Sunni. Early in this period, Egyptians began to
blend their new faith with indigenous beliefs and practices that had
survived through Coptic Christianity, giving rise to various Sufi
orders that have flourished to this day. Muslim rulers nominated by
the Islamic Caliphate remained in control of Egypt for the next six
centuries, including a period for which it was the seat of the
Caliphate under the Fatimids. With the end of the Ayyubid dynasty, the
Mamluks, a Turco-Circassian military caste, took control about AD
1250. They continued to govern even after the conquest of Egypt by the
Ottoman Turks in 1517.


The brief French Invasion of Egypt led by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798
had a great social impact on the country and its culture. Native
Egyptians became exposed to the principles of the French Revolution
and had a chance to exercise self-governance.[8] A series of civil
wars took place between the Ottoman Turks, the Mamluks, and Albanian
mercenaries following the evacuation of French troops, resulting in
the Albanian Muhammad Ali (Kavalali Mehmed Ali Pasha) taking control
of Egypt . He was appointed as the Ottoman viceroy in 1805. He led a
modernization campaign of public works, including irrigation projects,
agricultural reforms and increased industrialization, which were then
taken up and further expanded by his grandson and successor Isma'il
Pasha.

In 1866, the Assembly of Delegates was founded to serve as an advisory
body for the government. Members of the Assembly were elected from
across Egypt and came to have an important influence on governmental
decisions. Following the completion of the Suez Canal by Khedive
Ismail in 1869, Egypt became an important world transportation and
trading hub. However, the country fell heavily into debt to European
powers. As a result, the United Kingdom seized control of Egypt 's
government in 1882 to protect its financial interests, especially
those in the Suez Canal .

Shortly after its political intervention, Britain sent troops into
Alexandria and the Canal Zone , taking advantage of Egypt 's weak
military. With the defeat of the Egyptian army at the Battle of Tel
el-Kebir, British troops reached Cairo , eliminated the nationalist
government and disbanded the Egyptian military. Technically, Egypt
remained an Ottoman province until 1914, when Britain formally
declared a protectorate over Egypt and deposed Egypt 's last khedive,
Abbas II. His uncle, Husayn Kamil, was appointed as Sultan in his
place.

Between 1882 and 1906, a local nationalist movement for independence,
spurred by British actions, was taking shape. The Dinshaway Incident
prompted Egyptian opposition to take a stronger stand against British
occupation. The first political parties were founded. After the First
World War, Saad Zaghlul and the Wafd Party led the Egyptian
nationalist movement, gaining a majority at the local Legislative
Assembly. When the British exiled Zaghlul and his associates to Malta
on March 8, 1919 , the country arose in its first modern revolution.
Constant revolting by the Egyptian people throughout the country led
Great Britain to issue a unilateral declaration of Egypt 's
independence on February 22, 1922.

The new Egyptian government drafted and implemented a new constitution
in 1923 based on a parliamentary representative system. Saad Zaghlul
was popularly-elected as Prime Minister of Egypt in 1924. In 1936 the
Anglo-Egyptian Treaty was concluded. Continued instability in the
government due to remaining British control and increasing political
involvement by the king led to the ouster of the monarchy and the
dissolution of the parliament in a military coup d'état known as the
1952 Revolution. The officers, known as the Free Officers Movement,
forced King Farouk to abdicate in support of his son Fuad.

On 18 June 1953 , the Egyptian Republic was declared, with General
Muhammad Naguib as the first President of the Republic. Naguib was
forced to resign in 1954 by Gamal Abdel Nasser – the real architect of
the 1952 movement – and was later put under house arrest. Nasser
assumed power as President and declared the full independence of Egypt
from the United Kingdom on June 18, 1956 . His nationalization of the
Suez Canal on July 26, 1956 prompted the 1956 Suez Crisis.


Three years after the 1967 Six Day War, during which Israel had
invaded and occupied Sinai, Nasser died and was succeeded by Anwar
Sadat. Sadat switched Egypt 's Cold War allegiance from the Soviet
Union to the United States , expelling Soviet advisors in 1972. He
launched the Infitah economic reform policy, while violently clamping
down on religious and secular opposition alike.

In 1973, Egypt , along with Syria , launched the October War, a surprise
attack against the Israeli forces occupying the Sinai Peninsula and
the Golan Heights . It was an attempt to liberate the territory Israel
had captured 6 years earlier. Both the US and the USSR intervened and
a cease-fire was reached. Despite not being a complete military
success, most historians agree that the October War presented Sadat
with a political victory that later allowed him to regain the Sinai in
return with peace with Israel .

Sadat made a historic visit to Israel in 1977, which led to the 1979
peace treaty in exchange for the complete Israeli withdrawal from
Sinai. Sadat's initiative sparked enormous controversy in the Arab
world and led to Egypt's expulsion from the Arab League, but it was
supported by the vast majority of Egyptians.[12] A fundamentalist
military soldier assassinated Sadat in Cairo in 1981. He was succeeded
by the incumbent Hosni Mubarak. In 2003, the Egyptian Movement for
Change, popularly known as Kefaya, was launched to seek a return to
democracy and greater civil liberties.


GEOGRAPHY OF EGYPT


At 1,001,450 square kilometers (386,660 sq mi),[15] Egypt is the
world's 38th-largest country (after Mauritania ). It is comparable in
size to Tanzania , twice the size of France , four times the size of the
United Kingdom , and is more than half the size of the US state of
Alaska .

Nevertheless, due to the aridity of Egypt 's climate, population
centres are concentrated along the narrow Nile Valley and Delta,
meaning that approximately 99% of the population uses only about 5.5%
of the total land area.

Egypt is bordered by Libya to the west, Sudan to the south, and by
the Gaza Strip and Israel to the east. Egypt's important role in
geopolitics stems from its strategic position: a transcontinental
nation, it possesses a land bridge (the Isthmus of Suez) between
Africa and Asia, which in turn is traversed by a navigable waterway
(the Suez Canal) that connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Indian
Ocean via the Red Sea.

Apart from the Nile Valley , the majority of Egypt 's landscape is a
sandy desert. The winds blowing can create sand dunes more than 100
feet (30 m) high. Egypt includes parts of the Sahara Desert and of the
Libyan Desert . These deserts were referred to as the "red land" in
ancient Egypt , and they protected the Kingdom of the Pharaohs from
western threats.

Towns and cities include Alexandria, one of the greatest ancient
cities, Aswan, Asyut, Cairo, the modern Egyptian capital, El-Mahalla
El-Kubra, Giza, the site of the Pyramid of Khufu, Hurghada, Luxor, Kom
Ombo, Port Safaga, Port Said, Sharm el Sheikh, Suez, where the Suez
Canal is located, Zagazig, and Al-Minya. Oases include Bahariya, el
Dakhla, Farafra, el Kharga and Siwa. Protectorates include Ras Mohamed
National Park , Zaranik Protectorate and Siwa. See Egyptian
Protectorates for more information.


CLIMATE

Egypt does not receive much rainfall except in the winter months.
South of Cairo , rainfall averages only around 2 to 5 mm (0.1 to 0.2
in) per year and at intervals of many years. On a very thin strip of
the northern coast the rainfall can be as high as 410 mm (16 in),[18]
with most of the rainfall between October and March. Snow falls on
Sinai's mountains and some of the north coastal cities such as
Damietta , Baltim, Sidi Barrany, etc. and rarely in Alexandria , frost
is also known in mid-Sinai and mid-Egypt.

Temperatures average between 80 °F (27 °C) and 90 °F (32 °C) in
summer, and up to 109 °F (43 °C) on the Red Sea coast. Temperatures
average between 55 °F (13 °C) and 70 °F (21 °C) in winter. A steady
wind from the northwest helps hold down the temperature near the
Mediterranean coast. The Khamaseen is a wind that blows from the south
in Egypt in spring, bringing sand and dust, and sometimes raises the
temperature in the desert to more than 100 °F (38 °C).

The rise in sea levels due to global warming threatens Egypt 's densely
populated coastal strip and could have grave consequences for the
country's economy, agriculture and industry. Combined with growing
demographic pressures, a rise in sea levels could turn millions of
Egyptians into environmental refugees by the end of the century,
according to climate experts.

THE NILE RIVER


The Nile River is the longest river in the world, stretching for 4,187
miles. The Nile flows from south to north and is formed by three major
tributaries: the White Nile , the Blue Nile and the Atbara .
The Blue Nile has its source in the highlands of the African country
of Ethiopia , by Lake Tana . The runoff from spring rain and melting
snow caused the annual summer flood of the Nile that the Egyptians
depended on for water to irrigate their crops, and deposit fertile top
soil.

Just north of Khartoum the combined White and Blue Nile meet their
final major tributary, the Atbara which also has its source in the
Ethiopian highlands.

The Nile then plunges into a canyon. Before the construction of the
Aswan High Dam; the Nile rolled through a series of six rapids, called
cataracts, between northern Sudan and southern Egypt . Since
construction of the dam, the river has gradually changed its course.
North of Cairo, the Nile splits into two branches (or distributaries),
the Rosetta Branch to the west and the Damietta to the east. Lake
Nasser is a man-made lake created by the construction of the Aswan
High Dam, opened in 1971. The dam was built to regulate the flow of
the Nile River , and thus benefit the region's inhabitants. However,
technology often also disrupts a local ecosystem, the life and nature
it affects.

The canyon that was once behind where the dam is now, was flooded
after the dam was built. Before the region was flooded for the dam,
some Ancient sites were carefully moved. Others were permanently
covered and destroyed by the water. Lake Nasser stretches over a
distance of 312 miles. Gone are the days when Egyptians worry that the
Nile will flood too high, destroying their crops; or fall too low, not
providing proper irrigation. To enjoy the benefits of a steady river
flow, thousands of peoples homes were submerged when the dam went into
operation and Lake Nasser was formed.

The Aswan High Dam has caused other changes. The water surface of the
lake has reduced the average temperature in the region. The dam has
also harnessed the water for the production of electricity and
navigation has been improved.

Furthermore, the Nile is no longer flowing strongly enough to keep
salt water from the Mediterranean Sea from forcing its way up the
Nile .

In one generation, thousands of years of life along the Nile River
have been permanently altered.

THE RIVER NILE AND ITS BANKS

The Nile is truly the River of Life and has been revered in Egypt
since ancient times. Until the Aswan High Dam was built, only 4% of
Egypt was cultivated, but this has now been extended to 6%. Nearly all
habitation owes its existence to the narrow strip of land either side
of the river itself or to the very fertile Nile Delta in the north.

One explanation for the shape of the Ankh, the ancient Egyptian symbol
for eternal life, is that it is thought to represent the Nile and its
importance to life and consequently their religion. The two side arms
represent the two banks of the river - East for the Living and West
for the After-life. The top loop is for the productivity and fertility
of the Nile Delta; the stem is for the Nile itself.

The proximity of the Desert to the river is a constant reminder of the
fragility of the narrow strip of life which survives all the way from
Aswan to Cairo . Many of the dwellings and settlements have a very
simple existence with few modern amenities.