Egypt

Egypt's recorded history begins around 3100 BC with the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, and its pharaonic civilisation lasted, in recognisable form, for roughly three thousand years — the Old Kingdom pyramid builders, the Middle Kingdom, the empire of the New Kingdom under Thutmose, Hatshepsut, Akhenaten, Tutankhamun, and Ramesses, and a long decline through foreign rule by Libyans, Nubians, Assyrians, and Persians.

Alexander the Great took Egypt in 332 BC, and the Greek Ptolemaic dynasty ruled from Alexandria until Cleopatra's death and the Roman annexation of 30 BC. Egypt became an early heartland of Christianity — the Coptic Church dates its foundation to St Mark — before the Arab conquest of 641 brought Islam and Arabic.

Under a succession of Islamic dynasties, then the Ottomans, Egypt was often semi-independent. Muhammad Ali built a modern state in the nineteenth century; the Suez Canal opened in 1869; and Britain occupied the country from 1882. A 1952 army coup ended the monarchy and brought Gamal Abdel Nasser to power. Since then Egypt has been led by former military officers — Nasser, Sadat, Mubarak, and, after the 2011 revolution and a brief elected Islamist government, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

Egypt is an Arab and predominantly Sunni Muslim country, with a significant Coptic Christian minority — one of the oldest Christian communities in the world. Islam structures the week and the year, and Ramadan transforms daily life, with fasting by day and a festive, sociable rhythm after sunset.

Egyptian culture carries outsized weight in the Arab world: Cairo's film studios, singers such as Umm Kulthum, and its writers, including the Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz, shaped modern Arab culture, and Egyptian Arabic is understood from Morocco to Iraq. Humour, hospitality, and a fatalistic patience ("ma'alesh" — never mind) are common self-descriptions.

Family is the core social unit, hospitality to guests is a strong obligation, and respect for elders and religious observance are expected. Away from the beach resorts, modest dress is appreciated, more so for women and in rural and religious areas.

Around 100 million people — nearly the whole population — live on the roughly 5 percent of Egypt's land that the Nile and its delta make habitable, one of the highest concentrations of people anywhere. Greater Cairo, with well over 20 million residents, is the largest city in Africa and the Arab world, a sprawl of history, traffic, and unfinished brick apartment blocks, now sprouting a purpose-built "New Administrative Capital" in the desert to its east.

The economy leans on the Suez Canal, tourism, remittances from Egyptians working in the Gulf, natural gas, and agriculture, and has been squeezed by currency crises, debt, and inflation. Subsidised bread ("aish," which also means "life") remains politically sacrosanct.

Daily life runs on crowded microbuses and the Cairo metro, the ahwa (coffee house) for men, street food and juice stalls, and a working day that starts early and stretches late into the cooler evening.

Egyptian food is Mediterranean and Levantine, built on bread, pulses, and vegetables. Ful medames (slow-cooked fava beans) and ta'meya (the Egyptian falafel, made with fava rather than chickpea) are the breakfast staples. Koshari — a bowl of rice, macaroni, lentils, chickpeas, fried onions, and a spiced tomato sauce — is the great cheap street meal and an unofficial national dish.

Molokhia, a green soup of jute leaves, mahshi (stuffed vegetables and vine leaves), grilled kofta and kebab, roast pigeon (hamam), and fatta (rice, bread, and meat in a garlicky broth) fill out the table. Feseekh, fermented mullet, is eaten at the spring festival of Sham el-Nessim.

Sweets are syrup-heavy: basbousa, konafa, om ali bread pudding, and dates. Tea, often heavily sugared, and thick cardamom coffee are constant; karkadeh (hibiscus), sugarcane juice, and sahlab in winter are the other favourites.

Giza, on Cairo's edge, holds the last of the ancient Seven Wonders — the pyramids of Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure and the Sphinx — with the new Grand Egyptian Museum nearby gathering the treasures of Tutankhamun. Cairo itself adds Islamic monuments by the hundred, the Coptic churches of Old Cairo, the Khan el-Khalili bazaar, and the citadel.

Upper Egypt is the concentration of pharaonic wonders. Luxor, ancient Thebes, has the temples of Karnak and Luxor on the east bank and, across the river, the Valley of the Kings, the mortuary temples, and the Colossi of Memnon. A Nile cruise south links the temples of Edfu and Kom Ombo to Aswan, its granite quarries, and the relocated temples of Philae and, further on, the colossal rock-cut facade of Abu Simbel.

Away from the river, Alexandria has its Greco-Roman remains and Mediterranean faded glamour; the Western Desert oases of Siwa, Bahariya, and the sculpted White Desert offer a very different landscape; St Catherine's Monastery sits beneath Mount Sinai; and the Red Sea coast at Sharm el-Sheikh, Dahab, and Marsa Alam has some of the world's best coral-reef diving and snorkelling.