ancient cities

Ca i r o, Eg y p t
Cairo, or Al-Qahira (the Victorious), the Egyptian
capital, is the core of a vast metropolitan area
(Greater Cairo). In 2004, the city of Cairo, colloquially
also referred to as Misr (as is the country),
or lovingly as Um Al-Dunya (mother of the
world), was estimated to have about 7.6 million
inhabitants. The Greater Cairo region, one of the
world’s most densely populated urban regions,
has almost 17 million residents. Greater Cairo
includes the city of Cairo (on the east bank of the
Nile) with its historic quarters around Fatimid
Cairo and Old/Coptic Cairo; older popular quarters
like Husainiyah, Shoubra, and Bulaq; colonial
quarters like Heliopolis (Misr El Gedida), Zamalek,
and Maadi; and postcolonial modernist developments
like Medinet Nasr. In between are numerous
newer low-income neighborhoods like Zawiya
Al-Hamra, Sharabiya, and Manshiet Nasr. Greater
Cairo includes the city of Giza on the west bank
of the Nile. The last available population estimate
(1996) lists Giza’s population as 2.2 million.
Considering Giza’s recent phenomenal growth,
the current figure is likely to be over 3 million.
Giza includes its old core on the Nile, colonial
neighborhoods (Doqqi, Sharia Al-Haram), older
middle- to low-income quarters (Al-Agouza,
Doqqi Al-Balad), postcolonial modernist middleclass
developments (Muhandessin), and areas of
low-income public housing (Munib). Interspersed
in this cityscape are several older villages that
were engulfed by the city (Mit Oqba, Huttiya).
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Surrounding this core cityscape is a vast and dense
expanse of newer neighborhoods that have been
built by their residents largely without official
permits. Millions of residents live in these
neighborhoods (e.g., Embaba, Dar As-Salaam,
Matariya), often built around former villages.
Greater Cairo also includes the cities of Shourbra
Al-Khayma (Qalubiya Governorate) to the north
and Helwan (Giza Governorate) to the south.
Long History
Over the millennia, Cairo’s urban development
followed a vague layering or mosaic pattern,
where new additions were constructed not at the
expense of existing quarters but adjacent to them.
This pattern still underlies much of Cairo’s cityscape,
which is a mosaic of elements from different
historical eras displaying vastly varying styles
and spatial conceptualizations that produced a
multitude of spatial forms and social and cultural
practices.
On the Nile, where Giza and Misr Al-Qadimah
are today, there has been, for millennia, a river
crossing point. A small settlement developed by
this small port on the east bank. Under Roman
occupation, this settlement (“Babylon”) was fortified.
With the rise of Christianity in Egypt, Babylon
was slowly surrounded by churches and developed
into today’s Misr Al-Qadimah (Old/Coptic Cairo).
Some of its old churches still exist. Cairo’s oldest
synagogue, built in AD 882 (site of the Cairo
Geniza), is located on the eastern edge of this quarter.
When the Muslim forces under Amr Ibn Al-Aas