North Africa
Egypt
Cairo Governorate

Old Cairo

Old Cairo is the extensive district of southern from the southern boundary of down to the precinct commonly known as Coptic Cairo.
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Photo: Baldiri, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Photo: Blago Tebi, CC BY 3.0.
  • Type: Neighborhood with 270,000 residents
  • Description: historic area in Cairo, Egypt
  • Also known as: “El Fostat”, “El Fustat”, “Fostat”, “Masr al-Qadimah”, “Maṣr al-ʿAtīkaẗ”, “Misr al Qadimah”, “Mişr al Qadīmah”, “Misr al-qadima”, “Miṣr al-qadīmaẗ”, and “Misr El Qadima”

Places of Interest

Highlights include Rhoda Island and Mosque of ‘Amr ibn al-‘Āṣ.

Island
Photo: Argenberg, CC BY 4.0.
Roda Island is an island neighbourhood in the Nile in central , alternatively or partially known as Manial al-Roda, or al-Manial, in reference to the main village that existed on the island before it was urbanised, and is part of the Misr al-Qadima district.

Photo: Buyoof, CC BY-SA 3.0.
The Amr ibn al-As Mosque is a in , . Named after the Arab Muslim commander Amr ibn al-As, the mosque was originally built in 641–642 CE as the center of the newly founded capital of Egypt, .

Protected area
Photo: Wikimedia, Public domain.
, also Fostat, was the first capital of Egypt under Muslim rule, though it has been integrated into . It was built adjacent to what is now known as Old Cairo by the Rashidun Muslim general 'Amr ibn al-'As immediately after the Muslim conquest of in AD 641, and featured the Mosque of Amr, the first built in Egypt.

Places in the Area

Nearby places include Sayyidah Zainab District.

Suburb
Photo: Motazhesham2, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Sayyidah Zainab is one of the old traditional districts of , . Its name is based on the presence of the Sayyidah Zainab Mosque. It is known for its traditional restaurants, it also has the Qal'at al-Kabsh neighbourhood, which is one of the famous areas in the district, and the Ibn Tulun Mosque.

Old Cairo

Latitude
30.0174° or 30° 1′ 3″ north
Longitude
31.2332° or 31° 13′ 60″ east
Population
270,000
Elevation
25 metres (82 feet)
Open location code
8G2H268M+X7
Open­Street­Map ID
node 768552664
Open­Street­Map feature
place=­neighbourhood
Geo­Names ID
352261
Wiki­data ID
Q2993461
This page is based on OpenStreetMap, GeoNames, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, and Wikivoyage.
We’d love your help improving our open data sources. Thank you for contributing.

Satellite Map

Discover Old Cairo from above in high-definition satellite imagery.
© Stadia Maps, Airbus DS, CNES, PlanetObserver, and Copernicus

In Other Languages

From Arabic to Western Panjabi—“Old Cairo” goes by many names.
  • Arabic: “الفسطاط” (historical)
  • Arabic: “القاهرة القديمة”
  • Arabic: “حي مصر القديمة”
  • Arabic: “قسم مصر القديمة”
  • Arabic: “مصر العتيقة”
  • Arabic: “مصر العتيكة”
  • Arabic: “مصر القديمة”
  • Arabic: “مصر القديمه”
  • Armenian: “Հին Կահիրե”
  • Catalan: “Caire Vell”
  • Czech: “Stará Káhira”
  • Egyptian Arabic: “حى مصر القديمه”
  • Egyptian Arabic: “مصر القديمة”
  • Esperanto: “Malnova Kairo”
  • French: “Fostat”
  • French: “le vieux Caire”
  • French: “Vieux Caire”
  • French: “Vieux-Caire”
  • French: “Vieux Kaire” (historical)
  • German: “Alt-Kairo”
  • German: “Altkairo”
  • German: “Fustat”
  • Greek: “Παλαιό Κάιρο”
  • Hausa: “Tsohuwar Alkahira”
  • Hebrew: “העיר העתיקה של קהיר”
  • Indonesian: “Kairo Lama”
  • Irish: “Masr el Adima”
  • Irish: “Sean Caireo”
  • Italian: “Al-Fustat”
  • Italian: “Cairo Vecchia”
  • Japanese: “オールド・カイロ”
  • Norwegian Bokmål: “Gamle Kairo”
  • Norwegian: “Gamle Kairo”
  • Polish: “Kair koptyjski”
  • Polish: “Stary Kair”
  • Portuguese: “Cairo Velho”
  • Portuguese: “Cairo/Cairo Velho”
  • Russian: “Старый город”
  • Russian: “Старый Каир”
  • Scots: “Auld Cairo”
  • Slovenian: “Stari Kairo”
  • Spanish: “Miṣr al-Qadīmah”
  • Swedish: “Gamla Kairo”
  • Tamil: “பழைய கெய்ரோ”
  • Ukrainian: “Старий Каїр”
  • Urdu: “قدیم قاہرہ”
  • Western Panjabi: “قدیم قاہرہ”

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About Mapcarta. Data © OpenStreetMap contributors and available under the Open Database License". Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license, except for photos, directions, and the map. Description text is based on the Wikivoyage page “Old Cairo”. Photo: Blago Tebi, CC BY 3.0.