Lower Egypt
Lower Egypt is the northern part of Egypt, containing the Nile Delta, Cairo and Alexandria. It's not a defined region or province, just a convenient grouping for travel purposes, and with a high proportion of Egypt's top sights.| Tap on a place to explore it |
Photo: RolandUnger, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Photo: Pentaur, Public domain.
Essential Destinations
Top destinations include Cairo and Alexandria.
Cairo
Photo: Mario modesto, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Cairo is the capital of Egypt and, with a total population of Greater Cairo metropolitan area in excess of 16 million people, one of the largest cities in both Africa and the Middle East.
Alexandria
Photo: Wing, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Alexandria is Egypt's second largest city, its largest seaport, and the country's window onto the Mediterranean Sea. The city is a faded shadow of its former glorious cosmopolitan self, but still worth a visit for its many cultural attractions and still-palpable glimpses of its past.
Giza
Photo: Maveric149, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Picture yourself in Egypt and you picture this. Imagine Ancient Egypt and this is where your mind will land. Here is Giza, the city just west of Cairo, where on a desert plateau stand the Pyramids, Sphinx and royal tombs of the pharaohs.
Destinations to Discover
Explore places such as Port Said and Memphis.
Port Said
Photo: Mohamed kamal 1984, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Port Said is Egypt's third largest city, its second largest seaport and the entry point of the Suez Canal by the Mediterranean.
Memphis
Memphis is the English name for the present-day site of one of the great ancient capital cities of Egypt. Although very little remains to be seen on the surface, Memphis features a great sculpture museum, in the Mit Rahina village some 24 km south of the modern Egyptian capital of Cairo.
Ismailia
Photo: Wikimedia, Public domain.
Ismailia is a city in north-eastern Egypt. Situated on the west bank of the Suez Canal, it is the capital of the Ismailia Governorate. The city had an estimated population of 450,388 in 2023.
Dumyat
Photo: Mahmoud mohamed madyan, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Damietta is a port city and the capital of the Damietta Governorate in Egypt. It is located at the Damietta branch, an eastern distributary of the Nile Delta, 15 kilometres from the Mediterranean Sea, and about 200 kilometres north of Cairo.
Saqqara
Saqqara is the name given both to a village 32 km to the south of the Egyptian capital of Cairo and to the extensive ancient necropolis on the plateau above the Nile Valley, the location of tombs and pyramids dating to the Predynastic, Old Kingdom, New Kingdom and Late Periods of ancient Egyptian history.
Fayum
Photo: Yash8496, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Faiyum is a city in Middle Egypt. Located 100 kilometres southwest of Cairo, in the Faiyum Oasis, it is the capital of the modern Faiyum Governorate. It is one of Egypt's oldest cities due to its strategic location.
Zagazig
Photo: Dr.walid reda ashour, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Zagazig is a town of about 430,000 people in Lower Egypt, on the Muweis Canal. There is a museum of antiquities, the Sharkeya National Museum that contains many important archaeological exhibits…
Tanta
Photo: Faris knight, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Tanta is a city in Egypt. Tanta had a population of 658,798 in 2018, making it the fifth most populous city in Egypt. Tanta is located between Cairo and Alexandria: 94 km north of Cairo and 130 km southeast of Alexandria.
El Alamein
Photo: Wikimedia, Public domain.
El Alamein is a city on the north coast of Egypt, famous as the site of major battles between British and German forces during the Second World War. This article also includes the adjacent areas of New Alamein, Marina el Alamein and Leukaspis.
Mansoura
Photo: Ahmed Al.Badawy, CC BY-SA 2.0.
Mansoura is a city in Egypt located on the eastern bank of the Damietta branch of the Nile river. The city is the capital of the Dakahlia Governorate and has an estimated population of 632,330 as of 2023.
Desouk
Desouk is a city in Lower Egypt with 150,000 people. Desouk is renowned for the presence of Ibrahim El Desouki Mosque, which attracts over a million visitors annually on average.Rosetta
Photo: RolandUnger, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Rosetta or Rashid is a port city of the Nile Delta, 65 km east of Alexandria, in Egypt's Beheira governorate. The Rosetta Stone was discovered in nearby Fort Julien in 1799.
Damanhur
Photo: M mousa 86, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Damanhur is a city in Lower Egypt, and the capital of the Beheira Governorate. It is located 160 km northwest of Cairo, and 70 km E.S.E. of Alexandria, in the middle of the western Nile Delta.
Marsa Matruh
Photo: Wikimedia, Public domain.
Marsa Matrouh, also transliterated as Marsa Matruh, is a port in Egypt and the capital of Matrouh Governorate. It is located 240 km west of Alexandria and 222 km east of Sallum on the main highway from the Nile Delta to the Libyan border.
Dahshur
Photo: Pentaur, Public domain.
Dahshur is an Egyptian archaeological locality some 10 km to the south of Saqqara and therefore 35 km south of the Egyptian capital Cairo.
Banha
Photo: Faris knight, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Banha is a city of 182,000 people in the Nile Delta in Lower Egypt. It is on the east bank of the Damietta Branch of the Nile River in the rich farmland of the southern part of the river's delta.
Whale Valley
Photo: Tom Horton, CC BY-SA 2.0.
Wādī al-Ḥītān is a paleontological site in the Faiyum Governorate of Egypt, some 150 kilometres south-west of Cairo. It was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in July 2005 for its hundreds of fossils of some of the earliest forms of whale, the archaeoceti.
Abusir
Photo: Kurohito, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Abusir is the name given to an Egyptian archaeological locality on the desert plateau 10 km south of Giza and 8 km north of Saqqara. About 35 km south of the Egyptian capital Cairo, Abusir is the site of a compact pyramid field, with pyramids and funerary temples dating mainly from the 5th Dynasty of the Old Kingdom.
New Administrative Capital
Photo: U.S. Department of State, Public domain.
New Administrative Capital is the current official name for the new capital of Egypt, 45 km east of Cairo in Lower Egypt. The city will reportedly be named Wedian, the plural form of wadi which means dry riverbed.
Tell Basta
Photo: Einsamer Schütze, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Bubastis, also known in Arabic as Tell-Basta or in Egyptian as Per-Bast, was an ancient Egyptian city. Bubastis is often identified with the biblical Pi-Beseth.
Wadi El Natrun
Photo: someone10x, CC BY 2.0.
Wadi El Natrun is a valley in Lower Egypt. The valley contains several alkaline lakes, salt deposits, salt marshes and freshwater marshes. The area home to four historic Coptic monasteries still in use.
Lisht
Photo: Wikimedia, Public domain.
Lisht or el-Lisht is an Egyptian village located south of Cairo. It is the site of Middle Kingdom royal and elite burials, including two pyramids built by Amenemhat I and Senusret I.
Abu Kabir
Abu Kebir is a city in the Sharqia Governorate of Egypt. Successive census results indicate a considerable steady rise in its population - 68,394 in 1986, 85,339 in 1996, 103,175 in 2006, 142,420 in 2018 and 165,246 in 2023.Lower Egypt
- Type: Region
- Description: northernmost region of Egypt
- Also known as: “Al Wajh al Baḩrī”, “El Masr el Bahari”, “Er-Rif”, “Mişr Baḩr”, and “Wagh-el-Bahri”
- Location: Egypt, North Africa, Africa
- View on OpenStreetMap
This page is based on GeoNames, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, and Wikivoyage.
We’d love your help improving our open data sources. Thank you for contributing.
Satellite Map
Discover Lower Egypt from above in high-definition satellite imagery.
In Other Languages
From Afrikaans to Yue Chinese—“Lower Egypt” goes by many names.
- Afrikaans: “Benede-Egipte”
- Arabic: “مصر السفلى”
- Arabic: “مصر بحر”
- Armenian: “Ստորին Եգիպտոս”
- Azerbaijani: “Aşağı Misir”
- Basque: “Behe Egipto”
- Basque: “Egipto Beherea”
- Bosnian: “Donji Egipat”
- Breton: “Egipt Izel”
- Breton: “Goueled Egipt”
- Bulgarian: “Долен Египет”
- Catalan: “Baix Egipte”
- Catalan: “Han.rememhit”
- Catalan: “Llista de ciutats del baix Egipte”
- Chinese: “Ē Ai-ki̍p”
- Chinese: “下埃及”
- Croatian: “Donji Egipat”
- Czech: “Dolní Egypt”
- Dimli (individual language): “Mısıro Cêrên”
- Dutch: “Beneden-Egypte”
- Dutch: “Neder-Egypte”
- Egyptian Arabic: “مصر السفلى”
- Esperanto: “Malalta Egiptio”
- Finnish: “Ala-Egypti”
- French: “Basse Egypte”
- French: “Basse-Egypte”
- French: “Basse-Égypte”
- Galician: “Baixo Exipto”
- Georgian: “ქვემო ეგვიპტე”
- German: “Unterägypten”
- German: “Unterägyptisch”
- Greek: “Κάτω Αίγυπτος”
- Hebrew: “מצרים התחתונה”
- Hebrew: “מצרים תחתית”
- Hungarian: “Alsó-Egyiptom”
- Icelandic: “Neðra Egyptaland”
- Indonesian: “Mesir Bawah”
- Indonesian: “Mesir Hilir”
- Irish: “An Éigipt Íochtarach”
- Italian: “Basso Egitto”
- Japanese: “下エジプト”
- Korean: “하이집트”
- Latin: “Aegyptus inferior”
- Lithuanian: “Žemutinis Egiptas”
- Macedonian: “Долен Египет”
- Malagasy: “Ejipta Ambany”
- Malay: “Mesir Bawah”
- Malay: “Mesir Hilir”
- Min Nan Chinese: “Ē Ai-ki̍p”
- Norwegian Bokmål: “Nedre Egypt”
- Norwegian: “Nedre Egypt”
- Obolo: “Osiki Ijipiti”
- Persian: “مصر سفلی”
- Polish: “Dolny Egipt”
- Portuguese: “Baixo Egipto”
- Portuguese: “Baixo Egito”
- Portuguese: “Baixo Império Egípcio”
- Romanian: “Egiptul de Jos”
- Russian: “Багари”
- Russian: “Нижний Египет”
- Serbian: “Donji Egipat”
- Serbian: “Доњи Египат”
- Serbo-Croatian: “Donji Egipat”
- Sinhala: “පහළ ඊජිප්තුව”
- Slovenian: “Dolnji Egipt”
- Slovenian: “Spodnji Egipt”
- Spanish: “Bajo Egipto”
- Swedish: “Nedre Egypten”
- Tamil: “கீழ் எகிப்து”
- Thai: “อียิปต์ล่าง”
- Turkish: “Aşağı Mısır”
- Ukrainian: “Нижній Єгипет”
- Urdu: “زیریں مصر”
- Venetian: “Baso Ezito”
- Vietnamese: “Hạ Ai Cập”
- Waray (Philippines): “Ubos nga Ehipto”
- Welsh: “Yr Aifft Isel”
- Yue Chinese: “下埃及”
Egypt: Must-Visit Destinations
Delve into Luxor, Aswan, Abu Simbel, and Port Suez.
Explore These Curated Destinations
Discover places selected for their distinct character and enduring appeal.
About Mapcarta. 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 “Lower Egypt”. Photo: Pentaur, Public domain.