Making history: An age-old civilisation at the confluence of Africa, Asia and Europe

Home to one of the oldest civilisations in the world, spanning millennia, Egypt remains the most populous and one of the most influential countries in the Arab world. The wealth of the Nile and its fertile banks and delta, together with Egypt’s location at the confluence of Africa, Asia and Europe, have made the country a valuable prize for centuries, as well as a centre of trade and ideas. In the 1950s the country served as one of the major launching pads for the pan-Arab movement and recent history has seen it play an equally key role in accelerating the spread of the Arab Spring across the region.

GEOGRAPHY & CLIMATE: Egypt covers an area of just over 1m sq km, or roughly twice the size of Spain. However, the country is mostly desert, around 97%, and the Nile Valley and delta are home to some 95% of the population, covering just under 35,000 sq km, or slightly less than the area of the Netherlands. The Nile is the longest river in the world at 6650 km, of which around 1500 km runs through Egyptian territory, and has been the source of wealth in the country for centuries. Its annual flooding deposited fertile soil and irrigated the land, allowing for multiple harvests a year.

Egypt continued to depend on the annual Nile flood until 1970, when the Aswan Dam was completed, making the country less vulnerable to periodic drought and high floods. Egypt’s borders stretch some 2665 km, including from east to west, an 11-km border with the Gaza Strip, 266 km with Israel, 1273 km with Sudan and 1115 km with Libya. The total coastline is 2450 km. The country is also home to the Suez Canal, which is an artificial waterway that connects the Mediterranean and Red Seas, and is a major international transit route.

The climate throughout the country is a desert one, with hot summers and cold temperatures at night, especially in the winter months, and generally low rainfall. Summer temperatures vary between 25°C and 35°C, while winter temperatures average between 15°C and 25°C, with the far south being much drier and hotter, and the Mediterranean coast wetter and cooler. Rainfall is not significant, except possibly on the north coast, and averages around 100-200 mm a year across most of the country. Cairo, the capital, lies at the point where the Nile branches into the delta, which is fed by the Damietta and the Rosetta branches of the Nile, named for the ports at their respective mouths. The delta at its widest points stretches some 250 km and consists of a fertile agricultural plain.

The country has few large mountain ranges, and the highest point is Mount Sinai at 2285 metres (where Moses is said to have received the Ten Commandments), while the lowest point is the Qattara Depression in the western desert, which lies some 133 metres below sea level.

POPULATION: In 2013 the Egyptian Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics estimated that the population was around 84m people. Of these, according to the 2006 census, 99% were ethnic Egyptians, although minorities of Nubians, Turkmen, Armenians and others live in the country as well. An estimated 2.7m Egyptian live overseas and sent approximately $14.3bn in remittances in 2011, according to the World Bank. An estimated 500, 000-3m refugees (mostly Sudanese, Palestinian and increasingly Syrian) also live in Egypt.

The population profile is very young, with 31% of Egyptians under the age of 15, according to World Bank indicators in 2011. The population was growing at an estimated rate of 1.7% a year, and the average number of children born per woman was 2.7. The country is fairly urbanised, with some 44% of Egyptians residing in urban areas, and of those that are, most are concentrated in the capital city of Cairo, for which population estimates vary between 20m and 30m, depending on the organisation doing the estimating and how the city and metropolitan area are defined. The World Bank estimated in 2011 that 31% of all Egyptians lived in the capital. The next largest city is Alexandria, the population of which varies between 3m and 6m people. Other important cities in Egypt include Port Said, El Mahalla El Kubra, Damietta, Rosetta, Assiut, El Minya and Aswan.

LANGUAGE: The language of Egypt is Arabic, which is the mother tongue of around 99% of the population. The Arabic language is divided between a formal, classical register known as fusha, which is used in religion, formal speeches, literature and newspapers, and a number of colloquial dialects. Of these, Cairene is the most widely understood in the Arab world, due to the influence of Egyptian films, TV series and pop music, all of which are have big audiences outside of Egypt’s borders.

Other dialects within the country include Bahari (the dialect of rural areas in the Delta), Saidi (the Upper Egyptian dialect) and a number of Bedouin dialects, while a variant of Berber is spoken in the oasis of Siwa in the western desert near the Libyan border. English or French are widely taught in urban-area private schools as second languages.

CULTURE & RELIGION: Around 90% of Egyptians are Muslims. The country is home to the Al Azhar Mosque, which has for centuries been the most venerable centre of learning for Sunni Islamic jurisprudence, and remains so today. In recent times, debate over the exact role religion should play in public life has come to the fore, and the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, a religious revivalist organisation dating back to 1928.

Around 10% of Egyptians are Christian, most following the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. In November 2012 the Coptic Church chose its 118th pope, Pope Tawadros II. Other Christian groups include various Armenians denominations and the Greek Orthodox Church. The Egyptian Jewish community, which numbered in the tens of thousands in the first half of the 20th century, has dwindled and now totals around 100, mostly elderly, individuals.

EDUCATION: Over the past decade, Egypt has invested heavily in education, and the literacy rate stood at 72% in 2011, according to the World Bank. Spending on education amounted to 3.8% of GDP in 2008, the last year for which figures are available, while in 2010 primary school completion rate had reached 100%. The majority of schoolchildren pass through the public education system, with schooling according to the English, American or French systems also available at private institutions. Egypt boasts 20-plus public universities and numerous private ones, with a student population that numbers over 20m.

HISTORY: The Nile Valley has been an agriculture lifeline for millennia, with ancient Egypt being less arid than it is today. The earliest Egyptian kingdom dates back to around 3100 BCE, under the Pharaoh Menes. The extent of territory controlled by the Pharaonic dynasties waxed and waned over the centuries, at times encompassing areas of the Levant, but the heartland was always based in the Nile Valley. In 343 BCE the Pharaonic era finally came to an end as the last native dynasty gave way to Persian rule following the conquest of the area by Cambyses II. Persian Achaemenid rule was quickly followed by the conquest of the area by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE, after which the region formed part of the Ptolemaic, Roman and subsequently Byzantine empires over a period of almost 1000 years. But it was the conquest of Egypt in 646 CE by Amr ibn Al Aas that has perhaps proved most decisive in the nation’s history, with it subsequently becoming an Islamic and Arabic-speaking society. A series of Islamic dynasties ruled the country, including the Fatimids, Mamluks and Ottomans, before it finally came under British influence in the late 19th century.

The back-and-forth over the country continued throughout the latter half of the 20th century. In 1952 a military coup led by a group called the Free Officers removed King Farouk and established a republic. Subsequently, Egypt under Gamal Abdul Nasser pursued a policy of Arab Socialism, while his successor, Anwar Sadat, realigned the country with the US and welcomed foreign investment under the increasingly liberal economic policies of the 1970s. After Sadat’s assassination by an Islamic extremist in 1981, President Hosni Mubarak, an air force general, came to power and ruled for 30 years.

In January 2011 a wave of protests and sit-ins took place, protesting economic inequality and corruption, and Mubarak was forced to resign on February 12. Ruled by the military and an interim government for several months, elections were finally held roughly 18 months later. In June 2012 President Mohammed Morsi of the FJP was elected president in the country’s first free and fair elections. In November 2012 two-thirds of Egyptians voted in favour of a new constitution, although turnout for the vote was limited. Following widespread protests in June 2013, President Morsi was removed from office by the military the following month, parliament was disbanded and an interim government was installed.