Modern Egypt

Cairo is home to Africa's only subway

The first trains started running nearly 20 years ago, and the system has been gradually expanded. Today, the two subway lines carry 2.5 to three million people every day.
The system now has 53 stations and over 65 kilometers of track.

Located on the site of the historic eastern harbor of Alexandria, almost exactly where the old library and the royal palace of the Ptolemies once stood, the complex comprises three main elements: the pre-existing conference center, the planetarium and the new building.
The New Bibliotheca Alexandrina is dedicated to recapture the spirit of openness and scholarship of the original Bibliotheca Alexandrina.
The New Bibliotheca Alexandrina and the Library of Congress worked together to develop a world digital library.

In 2002, Egypt unveiled the New Bibliotheca Alexandrina near the spot where Alexandria's ancient library stood

Former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was the country's first Nobel laureate, after being awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace for his landmark peace agreement between Egypt and Israel at Camp David in 1978.
Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz became the only Arabic-language writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1988.
CalTech Professor Ahmed H. Zewail, won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1999 for how atoms in a molecule move during a chemical reaction.
Mohamed El-Baradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 for his efforts to promote, safe, peaceful use of nuclear energy.

Egypt has produced four Nobel laureates, awarded prizes for peace, chemistry and literature

Egypt is a major regional media player and its press is one of the most influential and widely-read in the region." - BBC World Reports
Over half of Egypt's newspapers are privately owned, including 17 newspapers published by churches and Christian groups.
Opposition parties may form their own newspapers, and in recent years the Shura Council has granted licenses to the Ghad and Karama parties to publish weekly newspapers.

Over 500 free press newspapers, journals and magazines are available in Egypt

In 2003, the first woman was appointed to Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court.
Nearly 30 percent of ministers, senior officials and managers in the public administration and defense establishment in Egypt are women.
A new law adopted in June allocates a quote of 64, or 12 percent, of the seats in the lower house of parliament to women.

Thirty female judges were appointed in Egypt in 2007

Amal Suleiman, a lawyer and mother of three, was appointed as a “Maazoun,” or Islamic marriage officer, in October 2008. She holds law and criminal justice degrees as well as a master's degree in Islamic Law.
Egypt’s Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa issued a religious edict at the time declaring that there are no restrictions in Islam on women acting as marriage registrars, stating that “women are allowed to conduct any form of financial, commercial or familial contract, including marriage.”

Egypt was the first Muslim country to appoint a female marriage officer.

The Coptic Orthodox Church was founded in Alexandria by the apostle Mark in AD 57, making it one of the oldest churches in the world.
A law requiring Presidential approval for church construction was changed in 2005, transferring that duty instead to the country’s governors who are obligated to process churches’ requests within 30 days.
In 2003, President Mubarak declared Coptic Christmas, celebrated on January 7, a national holiday.

Egypt has the largest and oldest Christian community in the Middle East.

The Camp David Accords, held under the leadership of Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and U.S. President Jimmy Carter, led to the Egypt-Israel peace treaty, signed in early 1979.
President Sadat’s historic visit to Jerusalem in 1977, as well as his speech in front of the Israeli Knesset, paved the way for the successful peace process between Egypt and Israel.
In his acceptance speech for the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize, President Sadat said “Let us put an end to wars; let us reshape life on the solid basis of equity and truth. And it is this call, which reflected the will of the Egyptian people, of the great majority of the Arab and Israeli peoples, and indeed of millions of men, women and children around the world.”
Since the establishment of peace between Israel and Egypt, the two countries have developed trade relations in a number of realms, including textiles, machinery, chemicals, vegetables and cotton, with bilateral trade reaching over $114 million in 2008.

Egypt was the first Arab state to sign a historic peace treaty with Israel.

Egypt’s capital, Cairo, is Africa’s and the Arab world’s largest cosmopolitan city.
Cairo, with a population of 16 million people, is the 11th largest urban area in the world.
The city of Cairo was founded in 968 A.D.
In 2005, Cairo sent delegations to New York to participate in the Sister City Summit titled “Strategies for Public Art.”

Cairo, Dallas and New York are sister cities.

Egypt produces approximately 4.6 million tons of medium and short-grain rice a year.
Rice is Egypt’s second most important export crop, after cotton.

Egypt is the largest rice producer in the Middle East and North Africa.

Of the more than 4,000 short and feature-length films made in Arabic speaking countries since 1908, more than three-quarters were Egyptian. The number of feature-length films produced in Egypt more than doubled from 1997 to 2007.
The Cairo International Film Festival was established in 1976 and has become one of the top festivals worldwide. It includes films from more than 50 countries in Africa, the Arab world and other parts of the world.

Egypt is the center of movie and television production in the Arab world.

Government scientists in Egypt are working to protect the spectacular coral reefs in the Red Sea by raising public awareness and establishing marine and terrestrial protected areas.
Red Sea Rangers, trained by the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency, patrol a substantial portion of the coral reefs.
The Egyptian Tourism Development Authority is developing ecotourism and eco-lodging centers to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of tourists who visit Egypt’s coral reefs every year.
The Red Sea reefs have hundreds of hard and soft coral species, marine mammals, reptiles, mangroves and species of fish.

Egypt is working to protect coral reefs in the Red Sea.

The Nilesat Company now broadcasts more than 450 digital TV channels, including English speaking channels such as BBC World News, CNN International, Bloomberg TV and the Discovery Channel.

Egypt was the first Arab country to have its own satellite.

Egypt’s national parks cover a variety of geographic terrains and protect ancient quarries, endangered animals and sulfur springs.
The Egyptian government established the Ras Muhammad National Park in 1983, off the southern portion of the Sinai Peninsula, to protect coral reefs as well as marine and terrestrial wildlife.
The Wadi El Rayan protected area boasts an upper and lower lake connected by a waterfall, sulfur springs and dune formations. The area is home to the endangered slender-horned gazelle.
A “mist oasis” exists at the top of Mount Elba, in the vast Elba Protected Area. This rare wet ecosystem is home to extensive vegetation and forty species of birds, including the endangered Dugong.

There are 21 national parks in Egypt.

• EgyptAir is the flag carrier airline of the Arab Republic of Egypt and its main hub is Cairo International Airport.

• Though state-owned, EgyptAir is self-financing and does not receive any funding from the Egyptian government.

• EgyptAir was established in May 1932, making it one of the oldest carriers in the world and a pioneer airline.

• EgyptAir operates scheduled passenger and freight services to more than 70 destinations in the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas, in addition to an extensive network of domestic services.

EgyptAir is Africa’s largest airline.

• Egypt has the third most World Heritage sites in Africa and the third most in the Arab World.

• The cultural heritage sites located in Egypt are Abu Mena, Ancient Thebes with its Necropolis, Historic Cairo, Memphis and its Necropolis – the Pyramid Fields from Giza to Dahshur, Nubian Monuments from Abu Simbel to Philae, and Saint Catherine Area.

• The only natural heritage site in Egypt is Wadi Al-Hitan (Whale Valley).

Egypt is home to seven World Heritage sites.

The first known labor strike in recorded history occurred in ancient Egypt during the reign of Pharaoh Ramesses III in the 1100th century B.C.
The artisans of the Royal Necropolis at Deir el-Medina went on strike after their wages were not paid.
Today, there are 25 trade unions in Egypt representing the interests of various professionals and workers.