Cairo is the capital and largest city of Egypt , while Alexandria , the second-largest city, is an important industrial and tourist hub at the Mediterranean coast. Egypt has one of the longest histories of any country, tracing its heritage along the Nile Delta back to the 6thβ4th millennia BCE. Considered a cradle of civilisation , Ancient Egypt saw some of the earliest developments of writing, agriculture, urbanisation, organised religion and central government.
Cairo became the capital of the Fatimid Caliphate in the tenth century, and of the provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate in the 13th century. Egypt then became part of the Ottoman Empire in , before its local ruler Muhammad Ali established modern Egypt as an autonomous Khedivate in The country was then occupied by the British Empire along with Sudan and gained independence in as a monarchy. Following the revolution , Egypt declared itself a republic.
Egypt fought several armed conflicts with Israel in , , and , and occupied the Gaza Strip intermittently until In , Egypt signed the Camp David Accords , which recognised Israel in exchange for its withdrawal from the occupied Sinai. After the Arab Spring , which led to the Egyptian revolution and overthrow of Hosni Mubarak , the country faced a protracted period of political unrest ; this included the election in of a brief, short-lived Muslim Brotherhood -aligned Islamist government spearheaded by Mohamed Morsi , and its subsequent overthrow after mass protests in The current government, a semi-presidential republic led by Abdel Fattah el-Sisi since he was elected in , has been described by a number of watchdogs as authoritarian and responsible for perpetuating the country's poor human rights record.
Egypt is a developing country with the second-largest economy in Africa. It is considered to be a regional power in the Middle East, North Africa and the Muslim world , and a middle power worldwide. Islam is the official religion and Arabic is official language.
It is reflected in early Greek Linear B tablets as "a-ku-pi-ti-yo". The term originally connoted " Civilisation " or " Metropolis ".
