Geographical situation
Egypt — Officially Arab Republic of Egypt — is a country covering a 997 739 km² surface (that is 1,8 times as big as France or twice Spain), which extends over the northeast extreme of the African continent and over the peninsula of the Sinai where it is limited in the East by the State of Israel and Saudi Arabia; in the South, the country is limited by Sudan and by the West by Libya. Given that Egypt extends in the oriental extremity of North Africa and goes on on the Asian continent by the made Sinai so that this geographical situation determines its membership in the Middle East. The capital of the country is Cairo.
Country is administratively divided into 26 governorates (muhafazat, singular: muhafazah): Ad Daqahliyah, Al Bahr al Ahmar, Al Buhayrah, Al Fayyum, Al Gharbiyah, Al Iskandariyah, iliyah Al Isma', Al Jizah, Al Minufiyah, Al Minya, Al Qahirah, Al Qalyubiyah, Al Wadi al Jadid, Ash Sharqiyah, As Suways, Aswan, Asyut, Bani Suwayf, Bur Sa'id, Dumyat, Janub Sina', Kafr ash Shaykh, Matruh, Qina, Shamal Sina', Suhaj. These governorates are of population and surface very uneven.
The name of Egypt would result from the former Egyptian hikuptah significant "castle of the ka of Ptah", one of the names of Memphis the Greeks of which made Aiguptos to apply him to the whole country. In Arabic, the word Egypt says itself misr ("big city" or "capital"), of the name of the new capital built to Fustat based under the first caliph fatimide of Egypt, Ubaydallah al-Mahdi, in the Xth century, called misr al-qâhira ("the victorious capital"), today Cairo.
