Egypt

Egypt is officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country in North Africa that includes the Sinai Peninsula, a ground bridge to Asia. Covering a region of about 1,001,450 square kilometers (386,560 square miles), Egypt borders Libya to the west, Sudan to the south, and Israel and the Gaza Strip to the northeast; on the north and the east are the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, correspondingly.

Egypt is the fifteenth most crowded country in the world. The huge majority of its 78.8 million people (2006) live close to the banks of the Nile River (about 40,000 km² or 15,450 sq miles) where the only arable agricultural land is found. Large areas of land form part of the Sahara Desert and are sparsely inhabited. Around half of Egypt's residents live in urban areas, with the majority spread across the densely populated center of greater Cairo (the largest city in Africa and the Middle East), Alexandria and other major towns in the Nile Delta.

Egypt is famous for its very old civilization and some of the world's most ancient and important monuments, including the Giza Pyramids and the Great Sphinx of Giza; the southern city of Luxury contains a particularly large number of ancient artifacts such as the Karnak Temple and the Valley of the Kings. Nowadays, Egypt is extensively regarded as a main political and cultural centre of the Middle East