Old Cairo is a part of Cairo

Cairo

Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

, Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

, that contains the remnants of those cities which were capitals before Cairo, such as Fustat, as well as some other elements from the city's varied history. For example, it encompasses Coptic Cairo

Coptic Cairo

Coptic Cairo is a part of Old Cairo which encompasses the Babylon Fortress, the Coptic Museum, the Hanging Church, the Greek Church of St. George and many other Coptic churches and historical sites. It is believed that the Holy Family visited this area and stayed at the site of Saints Sergius and...

 and its many old churches and ruins of Roman fortifications. Modern tourists visit locations such as the Coptic Museum

Coptic Museum

The Coptic Museum is a museum in Coptic Cairo, Egypt with the largest collection of Egyptian Christian artifacts in the world. It was founded by Marcus Simaika Pasha in 1910 to house Coptic antiquities. The museum traces the history of Christianity in Egypt from its beginnings to the present day...

, the Babylon Fortress

Babylon Fortress

Babylon Fortress was an ancient fortress city or castle in the Delta of Egypt, located at Babylon in the area today known as Coptic Cairo.It was situated in the Heliopolite Nome, upon the right bank of the Nile, at latitude 30°N, near the commencement of the Pharaonic Canal , from the Nile to the...

, the Hanging Church and other Copt

Copt

The Copts are the native Egyptian Christians , a major ethnoreligious group in Egypt....

ic churches, the Ben Ezra Synagogue

Ben Ezra Synagogue

The Ben Ezra Synagogue , sometimes referred to as the El-Geniza Synagogue or the Synagogue of the Palestinians, is situated in Old Cairo, Egypt. According to local tradition, it is located on the site where baby Moses was found...

 and the Mosque of Amr ibn al-'As. Fort Babylon is a Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 fortress around which many of the Egyptian Christians'

Copt

The Copts are the native Egyptian Christians , a major ethnoreligious group in Egypt....

 oldest churches were built.
Count Gabriel Habib Sakakini Pasha (1841–1923), who had become a household name in his time, built a palace and a church in the Sakakini area in 1897 and established the Roman Catholic Cemetery in Old Cairo.

Medieval history

During the latter half of the 15th century, two final major transformations took place in Cairo: the port of Bulaq, and a district called al-Azbakiyyah

Azbakeya

Azbakeya is one of the districts of Cairo, Egypt in the centre of Cairo, and contains many historically important establishments.One of these is the Saint Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral , which was inaugurated by Pope Mark VIII in 1800. and served as the seat of the Coptic Pope in Cairo from...

 in the northwest section of the city. The perimeters of the city had been unchanged for the past 300 years according to the map done by the French expedition in 1798 A.D. With the Baybars’s conquest of Cyprus in 1428, Bulaq became the major port of Cairo. By the end of the 15th century, Bulaq was even able to take over the role as the major commercial port from misr al-Qadima (Old Cairo).

External links

• Fort Babylon Old Cairo on Wikivoyage
  Wikivoyage
  Wikivoyage is a free web-based travel guide for both travel destinations and travel topics written by volunteer authors. The name is a blend of the words “Wiki” and “Voyage”, the French word for travel, journey, voyage, or trip.The project has been founded in September 2006 by a German...
  
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