Cairo: City overview

Adjust font size:

Cairo is a lodestone of civilization, the center of a complex field of geographical, historical and cultural currents compressed into one chaotic megalopolis on the banks of the Nile. Egyptians proudly refer to their capital as the "Mother of all Cities." Medieval Arabs called it the "Mother of the World." For centuries it has been a natural meeting point between African, Arabic and European cultures. To walk through Cairo -- from the pyramids at Giza, via the Roman-influenced old town, the mosques and souks of Ottoman-era Darb al-Ahmar, the Garden City's Art Deco suburbs to Nasser's secular modernism -- is to step along a seismic fault line of epochs and empires. Yet in its modern incarnation, Cairo inspires more awe than love. Overcrowded, overflowing and overstretched, Cairo is home to more than 16 million people, with an estimated 13 square centimeters of greenery for each of them. As the suburbs begin to creep around them, even the pyramids are no longer sacred space. Away from the tourist routes, biblical slums spill out into the desert. A third of Cairenes live without running water and a quarter manage without sewers. Dusty, polluted, noisy and snarled up with traffic, even Downtown Cairo can be a violent culture shock to western sensibilities. Yet somehow the city continues to function, held together primarily by a complicated mosaic of customs and tradition that outsiders can only scrape the surface of understanding.

Get up-to-the minute news from CNN CNN.com gives you the latest stories and video from the around the world, with in-depth coverage of U.S. news, politics, entertainment, health, crime, tech and more.

---

• Feds: Couple crashed Obama's state dinner
• Orphan finds new life in Israel
• Dubai shock after debt standstill call
• Philippines politician to be questioned
• Site posts reported 9/11 text messages

• Irish PM to quit over payments scandal
• NATO chief: Afghan troop increase likely
• Militants hunted as calm retuns to Basra
• Pressure on Bush to skip Olympics
• BA sending misplaced T5 baggage to Milan

• Recruiting suicide bombers (2:50)
• London was lucky (2:36)
• Cars in London rigged as bombs (3:48)
• Second explosives-packed car foun (2:32)
• Soviet culture returns (3:47)