Travel information for your Egypt Travel

Egypt Travel Guide

Top Rated Hotels 1. Grand Hyatt Cairo Cairo 2. Conrad Cairo Cairo 3. Four Seasons Cairo at Nile Plaza Cairo See all Hotels   Top Rated Restaurants 1. Restaurant el Mina Hurghada 2. Tut Ank Ahmen (Tutankamen) Luxor 3. Fitirbäcker Cairo See all Restaurants   Top Rated Attractions 1. Luxor Temple Luxor 2. Karnak Temple Luxor 3. Giza pyramid complex Nazlat as Samman See all Attractions

Top Rated Travel Tips

guidebasem Tourist

Travel Tip: Camel Market in Cairo ! How you will feel when you be among hundreds of nice Camels in one of... Egypt >> Cairo and Nile Delta

meljc Virgin

Travel Tip: The Egyptian Museum The Egyptian museum is an enormous and impressive building in the centre of... Egypt >> Cairo and Nile Delta

AndreaLJC Globetrotter

Travel Tip: Going to the Pyramids I went to the Pyramids in April and it was scorching and there is no shelter... Egypt >> Cairo and Nile Delta >> Cairo >> Pyramid of Teti

Travel Guide

History

The regularity and richness of the annual Nile River flood, coupled with semi-isolation provided by deserts to the east and west, allowed for the development of one of the world's great civilizations. A unified kingdom was founded circa 3200 BC by King Menes, and a series of dynasties ruled in Egypt for the next three millennia. (Judaism celebrates a holiday, Passover, which is based on, according to Jewish tradition, the freeing of ancient Hebrews from servitude under one of those kings, even though there is no definite archaeological evidence for such an event.) The last native dynasty, known as the Thirtieth Dynasty, fell to the Persians in 341 BC who dug the predecessor of the Suez canal and connected the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. Later, Egypt fell to the Greeks, Romans, Byzantines and Persians again.

It was the Muslim Arabs who introduced Islam and the Arabic language in the seventh century changing Egypt into a linguistically "Arab" nation. Muslim rulers nominated by the Islamic Caliphate remained in control of Egypt for the next six centuries. A local military caste, the Mamluks took control about 1250 and continued to govern even after the conquest of Egypt by the Ottoman Turks in 1517.

Following the completion of the Suez Canal in 1869, Egypt became an important world transportation hub; however, the country also fell heavily into debt. Ostensibly to protect its investments, Britain seized control of Egypt's government in 1882, but nominal allegiance to the Ottoman Empire continued until 1914.

Partially independent from the UK in 1922, Egypt acquired full sovereignty following World War II. Between 1924-1936 there existed a short-lived attempt to model Egypt's constitutional government after the European style of government; known as Egypt's Liberal Experiment. In 1952 a popularly-supported military coup d'état forced King Farouk I, a constitutional monarch, to abdicate in support of his son King Ahmed Fouad II . Finally the Egyptian Republic was declared on 18 June 1953 with General Mohamed Naguib as the first President of the Republic. After Naguib resigned in 1954, Gamal Abdel Nasser, the real architect of the 1952 Revolution, assumed power as President and nationalized the Suez Canal leading to the 1956 Suez Crisis. Between 1958 and 1961 Egypt and Syria formed a union known as the United Arab Republic.