Egypt

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the country of Egypt. For a topic outline on this subject, see List of basic Egypt topics. For other uses, see Egypt (disambiguation). Arab Republic of Egypt

Flag Coat of arms
Anthem: Bilady, Bilady, Bilady


Capital
(and largest city) Cairo
31°13′E / 30.033, 31.217
Official languages Arabic
Ethnic groups  99% Egyptians, 0.3% Nubians, 0.7% Greeks
Demonym Egyptian
Government Semi-presidential republic
 -  President Hosni Mubarak
 -  Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif
Establishment
 -  First Dynasty c.3150 BCE 
 -  Independence from United Kingdom February 28, 1922 
 -  Republic declared June 18, 1953 
Area
 -  Total 1,002,450 km² (30th)
387,048 sq mi sq mi 
 -  Water (%) 0.632
Population
 -  November 2008 estimate 75,500,662[1] (16th)
 -  Density 74/km² (120th)
192/sq mi
GDP (PPP) 2007 estimate
 -  Total $404.293 billion[2] (27th)
 -  Per capita $5,495[2] (97th)
GDP (nominal) 2007 estimate
 -  Total $127.966 billion[2] (52nd)
 -  Per capita $1,739[2] (117th)
Gini (1999–00) 34.5 (medium) 
HDI (2008) ▼ 0.716 (116th)
Currency Egyptian pound (EGP)
Time zone EET (UTC+2)
 -  Summer (DST) EEST (UTC+3)
Drives on the right
Internet TLD .eg
Calling code 20
¹ Spoken variety is Egyptian Arabic.

Egypt ( /ˈiːdʒɪpt/ (help·info); Arabic: مصر‎, Miṣr or Máṣr) is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia. Covering an area of about 1,010,000 square kilometers (390,000 sq mi), Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west.

Egypt is one of the most populous countries in Africa and the Middle East. The great majority of its estimated 82 million[1] 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.

Etymology

km.t (Egypt)
in hieroglyphs

One of the ancient Egyptian names of the country, Kemet (kṃt), (from kem "black"), is derived from the fertile black soils deposited by the Nile floods, distinct from the deshret, or "red land" (dšṛt), of the desert.[3] The name is realized as kīmi and kīmə in the Coptic stage of the Egyptian language, and appeared in early Greek as Χημία (Khēmía).[4] Another name was t3-mry "land of the riverbank".[5] The names of Upper and Lower Egypt were Ta-Sheme'aw (t3-šmˁw) "sedgeland" and Ta-Mehew (t3 mḥw) "northland", respectively.

Miṣr, the Arabic and modern official name of Egypt (Egyptian Arabic: Maṣr), is of Semitic origin, directly cognate with other Semitic words for Egypt such as the Hebrew מִצְרַיִם (Mitzráyim), literally meaning "the two straits" (a reference to the dynastic separation of upper and lower Egypt).[6] The word originally connoted "metropolis" or "civilization" and also means "country", or "frontier-land".

The English name "Egypt" came via the Latin word Aegyptus derived from the ancient Greek word Aígyptos (Αίγυπτος). The adjective aigýpti, aigýptios was borrowed into Coptic as gyptios, kyptios, and from there into Arabic as qubṭī, back formed into qubṭ, whence English Copt. The term is derived from Late Egyptian Hikuptah "Memphis", a corruption of the earlier Egyptian name Hat-ka-Ptah (ḥwt-k3-ptḥ), meaning "home of the ka (soul) of Ptah", the name of a temple to the god Ptah at Memphis.[7] Strabo provided a folk etymology according to which Aígyptos (Αίγυπτος ) had evolved as a compound from Aegaeon uptiōs (Aἰγαίου ὑπτίως), meaning "below the Aegean".

Geography

At 1,001,450 square kilometers (386,660 sq mi),[8] Egypt is the world's 38th-largest country. In terms of land area, it is approximately the same size as all of Central America,[9] twice the size of France,[10] four times the size of the United Kingdom,[11] and the combined size of the US states of Texas and California.[12]

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.[13]

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.