Basic Information

National Day: July 23rd, comemorating the anniversary of the 1952 revolution

Location: North Africa, between parallels 22 and 32 and meridians 24 and 37

Total Area: 1,000,250 sq. km.

Total Population: 71.9 million

Average annual population growth (2000-2005): 1.91%

Population between 15 and 60: 59%

No. of men per 100 women: 101

Life expectancy for men: 68.9 yrs.

Life expectancy for women: 73.5 yrs.

Urban population: 42.1%

ABOUT EGYPT:

Egypt, the world's most ancient state, is located in North Africa bordering Libya to the west, Sudan to the south, Israel and the Gaza Strip to the northeast, the Mediterranean Sea to the north, and the Red Sea to the east.

The Arab Republic of Egypt is one of the main political and cultural centers of the Arab world and of the Middle East. Egypt has been an influential pioneer in science, art, architecture, and many other intellectual fields throughout its impressive 7,000 year history as a civilization. Egypt is home to the only surviving wonder of the world, the Great Pyramid of Giza, as well as the Sphinx, Al-Azhar, the world's oldest university, the Suez Canal, which links the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, the Sinai peninsula, which links Africa to Asia, and the River Nile, whose rich deltas have sustained the Egyptian economy for thousands of years.

Arabic has been the official language of Egypt and Islam has been the dominant Egyptian religion since the Arab conquests of the 7th century A.D. The majority of Egypt's 71.9 million citizens are Muslim, although a significant minority are Coptic Christians following on of the oldest Churches in the world. Egypt also has minorities of Roman Catholics as well as Greek and Armenian Orthodox. The majority of the Jewish population left with the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.

Egypt has been a popular international tourist attraction for some time and is especially popular with Europeans. Not only is Egypt known for its recreational tourism with such attractions as the Great Pyramid at Giza, the Sphinx, Sharm-el-Sheikh, Safaga, and Hurghada, but it is also known for its therapeutic and environmental tourism, safaris, sports, and conferences.

TERRAIN:

The Nile, which traverses over 1,000 miles within Egypt, from Wadi Halfa in the South to the Mediterranean Sea in the north, divides the country into four broad regions:

- The Nile Valley and the Delta, where most of the population lives, occupying about 33,00 km2 accounting for less than 4% of the total area of the country.

- The Western Desert, which occupy two thirds of the total are of Egypt, (680,000 km2)

- The Eastern Desert, which occupies about a quarter of the total area of Egypt, (225,000 km2).

- Sinai Peninsula occupying about 61,000 km2.

NATURAL RESOURCES:

Cultivated Land amounts to around 3 % of the total area of Egypt (7.4 million feddans out of a total land area of 238 million feddans).

The River Nile is the main source of water. Rain and underground water are also used in the arid areas outside the Nile valley and Delta.

Mineral Resources: Egypt is rich in mineral resources such as phosphate, iron and petroleum.

DEMOGRAPHY:

The Nile Valley and the Delta are the most densely populated parts of Egypt. The inhabited area constitutes about 6.0% of the total are of the country. The vast majority of the remaining land is made up of sparsely inhabited, arid desert. Although average population density in Egypt is around 60 inhabitants/sq. km, actual population density in inhabited areas averages 1,000 inhabitants/sq. km.

One of the fundamental goals of Egypt's policy is to redistribute the population and to make full use of the so far unexploited areas and natural resources available, through extensive land reclamation efforts aiming at increasing the area of arable land. Great attention is presently directed to the new cities with special emphasis given to the master development plans for Sinai and the New Valley in southern Egypt; two areas with huge economic and strategic potential.

CLIMATE:

Egypt has mainly two seasons: a mild winter from November to April and a hot summer from May to October. In the coastal regions, temperatures range between an average minimum of 14 C in winter and an average maximum of 30 C in summer. Temperatures vary widely in the inland desert areas, especially in summer, when they may range from 7 C at night to 43 during the day. During winter, temperatures in the desert fluctuate less dramatically, but they can be as low as 0 C at night and as high as 18 C during the day. The average annual temperature increases moving southward from the Delta to the Sudanese border, where temperatures are similar to those of the open deserts to the east and west. At Aswan, in the south, June temperatures can be as low as 10 C at night and as high as 41 C during the day when the sky is clear. Egypt receives fewer than eighty millimeters of precipitation annually in most areas. Most rain falls along the coast, but even the wettest area, around Alexandria, receives only about 200 millimeters of precipitation each year. The city, however, reports humidity as high as 77 percent during the summer. But during the rest of the year, humidity is low. The areas south to Cairo receive only traces of rainfall.

A distinctive phenomenon of Egypt's climate is the hot spring wind carrying sand that blows across the country. The winds, known to Europeans as the sirocco and to Egyptians as the khamasin, usually arrive in April but occasionally occur in March and May.