city, capital of Egypt, and one of the largest cities in Africa. Cairo has stood for more than 1,000 years on the same site on the banks of the Nile (Nile River), primarily on the eastern shore, some 500 miles (800 km) downstream from the Aswān High Dam (Aswan High Dam). Located in the northeast of the country, Cairo is the gateway to the Nile delta, where the lower Nile separates into the Rosetta and Damietta branches. Metropolitan Cairo is made up of the Cairo muḥāfazah (governorate), as well as other districts, some of which belong to neighbouring governorates such as Al-Jīzah and Qalūbiyyah. Area governorate, 83 square miles (214 square km). Pop. (2006) governorate, 7,786,640; (2005 est.) urban agglom., 11,128,000.

The city juxtaposes ancient and new, East and West. The Pyramids of Giza (Giza, Pyramids of), near Memphis, stand at the southwestern edge of the metropolis, and an obelisk in the northeast marks the site of Heliopolis, where Plato once studied; modern landmarks of Western-style high-rise hotels and apartment buildings overlook the Nile River. Between these extremes are other architectural monuments, dating from Roman, Arab, and Turkish times. In addition to department stores, cinemas, hotels, and town houses, Cairo contains a large functioning bazaar and an extensive, semi-walled medieval city endowed with more than 400 registered historic monuments—including mosques, mausoleums, and massive stone gates—dating to 130 CE.

The organization of the metropolitan complex is understandable only in the context of the city's history. The three oldest areas constitute densely populated poorer neighbourhoods that virtually surround a relatively Westernized downtown core. The largest of these is the medieval city built under the Fāṭimid (Fāṭimid Dynasty) dynasty (909–1171), with its pre-19th century extensions (Al-Jamāliyyah, Al-Darb al-Aḥmar, Bāb al-Shaʿriyyah, and Al-Sayyidah Zaynab toward the east and Al-Khalīfah toward the north). Situated within this densely settled zone are most of Cairo's historic monuments, including the Mosque of Baybars I at its northernmost edge and Saladin's Citadel in the south. Among the major bazaars within the central walled city is the Khān al-Khalīli, an expansive assortment of shops near al-Azhar Mosque, as well as various markets offering gold, copper ware, textiles, rugs, amber, spices, and leather goods. The major north-south thoroughfare is Shāriʿ al-Muʿizz li-Dīn Allāh, which bisects the old city and along which stand the major mosques and markets. Running perpendicular to this street is Shāriʿ al-Azhar; created in the 1920s to link the mosque of that name with Al-ʿAtabah al-Khaḍrā Square streetcar terminal, Shāriʿ al-Azhar now connects the old city with the central business district. Most other streets are narrow, twisting, and often dead-ended. The city's historic core was designated a UNESCO World Heritage (World Heritage site) site in 1979.

The central business district, referred to as the Wasṭ al-Balad (“city centre,” or downtown), is flanked by these older quarters. The Wasṭ al-Balad includes the older Al-Azbakiyyah district, Garden City, and, more recently, Jazīrah, the island offshore. The major thoroughfare connecting the city along its north-south axis is the Kūrnīsh al-Nīl (the Corniche), a highway paralleling the Nile River, built in the 1950s. Along the Corniche lie the Television Building, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and a number of hotels; in addition, the Egyptian Museum is nearby. Jazīrah, across the Nile from the Corniche, is the site of the Cairo Tower, public gardens, a racetrack, two major sporting clubs, several major hotels, and some of the city's most valuable real estate. Between the imposing Nile riverfront and the ancient inland quarters is a transitional working-class zone, chiefly developed in the 19th century; the National Library, the Museum of Islamic Art, and the presidential palace and archives later came to populate this region.

Along the eastern edge of the metropolis stands the district of Al-Qarāfah (City of the Dead), a unique zone made up of an extensive series of cemeteries. In this vast, dusty, ochre-coloured district stand the exquisite shrine-mosques and mausoleums of early religious leaders such as Imam al-Shāfiʿī (Shāfiʿī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh ash-), the founder of Egypt's major legal tradition. The major monuments of these eastern cemeteries are Mamlūk in design, each topped by a plain or fluted dome; lesser tombs are simpler, rectangular constructions. Owing to the rapid population growth that occurred following Egypt's independence in 1922, however, housing and shops have sprung up in the City of the Dead, where it is estimated that more than one million Cairenes live, many without municipal utilities or an official address.

Building styles in Cairo are related to the historical period during which each quarter developed. In the oldest sections, two- to four-storied structures prevail, most built of fired brick covered with plaster and sometimes shored with half-timbering. A number of these have windows covered with delicately turned wooden lattices (mashrabiyyah; see moucharaby) and massive wooden doors elegantly decorated with inlay, brass, or iron nailheads. The traditional dwellings (of which only a few remain intact) open onto fountained courtyards and have separate quarters for men and women; the traditional workshops and warehouse inns (khans) have galleries overlooking their interior courtyards.

Cairene and Egyptian heritage are represented in the collections of the city's rich series of museums. Located on Al-Taḥrīr Square, the Egyptian Museum displays a vast collection of antiquities, among them the treasures of Tutankhamen; the Coptic Museum in Miṣr al-Qadīmah specializes in pre-Islamic icons, textiles, and stones, and the Museum of Islamic Art in Bāb al-Khalq displays Mamlūk Qurʾāns (Qurʾān) and objects of wood, brass, inlay, and glass. The War Museum, located at the Citadel, is also in Cairo, and the Turkish-style Manyāl Palace Museum stands on the island of Al-Rawḍah. The mosques of Cairo themselves often offer as rich a historical store as the city's museums.

Some 5,000 years ago Memphis—today lying mainly in ruins approximately 15 miles (24 km) southwest of Cairo—was a thriving metropolis; about 2,000 years ago the Romans occupied a town on the site of present-day Cairo called Babylon (later the Miṣr al-Qadīmah quarter). The seed from which contemporary Cairo later sprang was the town of Al-Fusṭāṭ (Fusṭāṭ, Al-), founded as a military encampment in 641 CE by ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ, an Arab general and administrator who brought Islam to Egypt. Successive dynasties added royal suburbs (including Al-ʿAskar, founded in 750 by the Umayyads (Umayyad Dynasty), and Al-Qaṭāʾiʿ, founded in 870 by Aḥmad ibn Ṭūlūn) to the increasingly prosperous commercial and industrial port city of Al-Fusṭāṭ. Little remains of these early developments in the southern part of the city, except the tower of Trajan (dating to 130 CE), the mosques of ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ (founded in 641–642) and Aḥmad ibn Ṭūlūn (Aḥmad ibn Ṭūlūn, Mosque of) (completed in 878), and the partially excavated mounds covering the site of Al-Fusṭāṭ.

Although Al-Fusṭāṭ was partially rebuilt, it was Cairo that was transformed from a royal enclave into an imperial metropolis. Saladin further extended the city's 11th-century walls, of which the northern and southern walls and three main gates—Bāb al-Futūḥ, Bāb al-Naṣr, and Bāb Zuwaylah—are still extant; he also constructed a citadel on the Muqaṭṭam spur (now dominated by the Muḥammad ʿAlī Mosque). After Baybars I became the first Mamlūk sultan of undisputed legitimacy in 1260, Cairo served as the capital of the Mamlūk empire, which governed Egypt, much of the Levant, and parts of the Fertile Crescent until 1517.

In the mid-14th century, decline set in—sporadically at first and then more precipitously. The city's population was decimated by plagues, including the outbreak of the Black Death in 1348. In addition, the spice trade monopoly was broken following Vasco da Gama (Gama, Vasco da)'s voyage from Portugal to India (1497–99), undermining Cairo's economic preeminence. Finally, political autonomy was lost to the Turks, who after 1517 reduced Cairo to a provincial capital in the Ottoman Empire. In 1798, when Napoleon (Napoleon I) and his troops arrived in Cairo, fewer than 300,000 people were living in the city and its two port suburbs, Miṣr al-Qadīmah and Būlāq.

Muḥammad ʿAlī, sent to Egypt in command of an Ottoman expeditionary contingent to oppose the French, had by 1805 succeeded in receiving the appointments of viceroy and pasha of Egypt from the Ottoman government. During a rule of more than 40 years, Muḥammad ʿAlī executed a series of sweeping programs, including the reorganization of the administrative structure, the improvement of irrigation systems, and the introduction of cotton, a commodity which Egypt would soon produce and trade on a large scale.

Guidebooks of Cairo include Claire E. Francy (compiler), Cairo: The Practical Guide, new rev. ed., updated and edited by Lesley Lababidi (2006); and Caroline Williams, Islamic Monuments in Cairo: The Practical Guide, new rev. ed., 5th ed. (2002). One of the most authoritative, scholarly works on Cairo remains Janet L. Abu-Lughod, Cairo: 1001 Years of the City Victorious (1971). Other works of significance include Galila El Kadi and Alain Bonnamy, Architecture for the Dead: Cairo's Medieval Necropolis (2007; originally published in French, 2001); Maria Golia, Cairo: City of Sand (2004); André Raymond, Cairo (2000; originally published in French, 1993); Max Rodenbeck, Cairo: The City Victorious (1999); Nezar AlSayyad, Cities and Caliphs: On the Genesis of Arab Muslim Urbanism (1991), and Streets of Islamic Cairo: A Configuration of Urban Themes and Patterns (1981); Carl F. Petry, The Civilian Elite of Cairo in the Later Middle Ages (1981); Malise Ruthven et al., Cairo (1980), and Cairo: A Life-Story of 1000 Years, 969–1969 (1969). Additional works that remain important include James Aldridge, Cairo (1969); Desmond Stewart, Cairo: 5500 Years (1968; also published as Great Cairo, Mother of the World, 3rd ed., 1996), and Stanley Lane-Poole, The Story of Cairo (1902, reprinted 1971).Janet L. Abu-Lughod Nezar AlSayyad

city, seat (1860) of Alexander county, extreme southern Illinois, U.S. The city stands on a low-lying delta at the confluence of the Mississippi (Mississippi River) and Ohio (Ohio River) rivers. Bridges over both rivers connect the city with Kentucky (east) and Missouri (west). Cairo was so named because its site was thought to resemble that of the Egyptian city (see Cairo), and southern Illinois consequently became known as Little Egypt.

Local industries include the production of pulp and paper and the manufacture of polyurethane foam and pet products. Notable attractions include the Custom House (1872), which is now a local museum, and the mansions along “Millionaire's Row,” including Magnolia Manor (1869), a five-story Italianate building. Fort Defiance State Park, site of the Civil War garrison, is just south; Mound City National Cemetery, just north of Cairo, contains thousands of Civil War graves. Horseshoe Lake Conservation Area and Shawnee National Forest are northwest of the city. Inc. 1818; reinc. 1857. Pop. (1990) 4,846; (2000) 3,632.