Egypt is a country linking northeast Africa with the Middle East, defined above all by the River Nile, whose green valley cuts through vast deserts. One of the oldest nation-states in the world, it was home to a civilisation of pharaohs, pyramids, and hieroglyphs that endured for thousands of years. Today it is the most populous country in the Arab world and a cultural and political heavyweight in the region.
Ancient Egypt, unified more than five thousand years ago, was one of humanity's first great civilisations, raising monuments that still astonish. Over later ages it was ruled by Greeks under the Ptolemies, ending with Cleopatra, and then absorbed into the Roman Empire. The Arab conquest in the seventh century brought Islam and the Arabic language, which reshaped Egyptian identity. Centuries of Islamic and Ottoman rule followed, then British domination, before Egypt won full independence in the twentieth century.
Egypt is overwhelmingly desert, and almost the entire population lives on the narrow ribbon of fertile land along the Nile and its broad delta on the Mediterranean. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus called the country the gift of the Nile, for without the river's water and silt this would be uninhabitable sand. The Suez Canal, cutting through Egyptian territory to join the Mediterranean and Red Seas, is one of the world's most vital waterways.
The Egyptian flag has three horizontal bands of red, white, and black, with a golden emblem, the Eagle of Saladin, at its centre. The colours are shared with several Arab nations and broadly represent the struggle against oppression, a bright future, and the dark days of the past. The eagle, a medieval symbol associated with the sultan Saladin, stands for strength and Arab identity.
The great majority of Egyptians are Sunni Muslims, and Islam is central to public and private life, with Cairo a historic centre of Islamic learning. Egypt is also home to one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, the Coptic Orthodox Church, which traces its founding to the first century and still forms a significant minority. This long religious heritage, ancient, Christian, and Islamic in turn, runs deep through the country's culture.
Egyptian food is hearty, plant-rich, and ancient in its roots. The national dish, koshari, piles rice, pasta, and lentils together with a spiced tomato sauce and fried onions. Ful medames, slow-cooked fava beans, is the classic breakfast, and ta'meya, the Egyptian falafel made from fava beans, is eaten everywhere. Flatbread accompanies most meals, and dishes like molokhia, a green leafy stew, reach back to the time of the pharaohs.
Egyptian agriculture is squeezed onto the fertile land of the Nile valley and delta, some of the most intensively farmed soil on Earth. The country has long been famous for its cotton, the prized long-fibre Egyptian cotton, and it grows rice, wheat, maize, sugarcane, and an abundance of fruit and vegetables. Because rain is almost nonexistent, farming depends entirely on irrigation from the Nile, which makes the river's water a matter of national survival.
Egypt's ancient achievements, from the pyramids to a writing system and advances in medicine and astronomy, shaped the wider ancient world. In modern times the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 reordered global trade, and the revolution of 1952 ended the monarchy and brought the nationalist leader Gamal Abdel Nasser to power. In 2011 mass protests centred on Cairo's Tahrir Square, part of the wider Arab Spring, toppled a long-ruling president.
Egypt has a population of more than 110 million people, the most populous country in the Arab world and among the largest in Africa. Almost everyone is crowded onto the small fraction of land watered by the Nile, making the inhabited strip one of the most densely populated places on the planet, while the surrounding desert lies nearly empty. Cairo, the capital, is one of the largest cities in Africa and the Middle East.
