Lower Egypt

Lower Egypt is the northern part of Egypt, containing the Nile Delta, and . 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.
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Photo: RolandUnger, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Photo: Pentaur, Public domain.

Essential Destinations

Top destinations include Cairo and Alexandria.

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is the capital of and, with a total population of Greater metropolitan area in excess of 16 million people, one of the largest cities in both and the .

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is '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 – particularly the new Library of – and still-palpable glimpses of its past.

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Picture yourself in Egypt and you picture this. Imagine Ancient Egypt and this is where your mind will land. Here is , 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.

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is 's third largest city, its second largest seaport and the entry point of the Suez Canal by the Mediterranean.

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is the English name for the present-day site of one of the great ancient capital cities of . Although very little remains to be seen on the surface, features a great sculpture museum, in the Mit Rahina village some 24 km south of the modern Egyptian capital of .

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is a city in north-eastern . Situated on the west bank of the , it is the capital of the . The city had an estimated population of 380,000 in 2024.

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Damietta is a port city which serves as the capital city of the in . It is located at the Damietta branch, an eastern distributary of the , 15 kilometres from the Mediterranean Sea, and about 200 kilometres north of .

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is the name given both to a village 32 km to the south of the capital of 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.

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is a city in . It had a population of 530,000 in 2024, making it the seventh most populous city in Egypt. The city is located between Cairo and Alexandria: 94 km north of and 130 km southeast of .

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Faiyum is a city located geographically in Lower Egypt but culturally and politically in Upper Egypt, 100 kilometres southwest of . In the , it is the capital of the modern .

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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…

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is a city on the north coast of , 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 and Leukaspis.

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is a city in located on the eastern bank of the Damietta branch of the Nile river. The city is the capital of the and has an estimated population of 600,000 as of 2024.

is a city in Lower Egypt with 150,000 people. is renowned for the presence of Ibrahim El Desouki Mosque, which attracts over a million visitors annually on average.

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or Rashid is a port city of the , 65 km east of , in 's . The was discovered in nearby in 1799.

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is a city in Lower Egypt, and the capital of the . It is located 160 km northwest of , and 70 km ESE of , in the middle of the western .

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Marsa Matrouh is a port city and the capital of in . It is located 240 km west of and 222 km east of on the main highway from the to the Libyan border.

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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.

Photo: Pentaur, Public domain.
is an archaeological locality some 10 km to the south of and therefore 35 km south of the Egyptian capital . Travellers from Cairo will often combine a visit to with a visit to Saqqara on the same day.

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Wādī al-Ḥītān is a paleontological site in the of , some 150 kilometres south-west of . 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.

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is the name given to an archaeological locality on the desert plateau 10 km south of Giza and 8 km north of . About 35 km south of the Egyptian capital , is the site of a compact pyramid field, with pyramids and funerary temples dating mainly from the 5th Dynasty of the Old Kingdom.

Photo: U.S. Department of State, Public domain.
The is the current official name for the of Egypt, 45 km east of Cairo in Lower Egypt.

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Bubastis, also known in Arabic as or in Egyptian as Per-Bast, was an ancient Egyptian city. Bubastis is often identified with the biblical Pi-Beseth.

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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.

Photo: Wikimedia, Public domain.
or el-Lisht is an Egyptian village located south of . It is the site of Middle Kingdom royal and elite burials, including two pyramids built by Amenemhat I and Senusret I.

Abu Kebir is a city in the of . 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

Latitude of center
31° north
Longitude of center
31° east
Elevation
5 metres (16 feet)
Geo­Names ID
352260
Wiki­data ID
Q463871
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.
© Stadia Maps, Airbus DS, CNES, PlanetObserver, and Copernicus

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”
  • Hausa: “Lower Egypt”
  • 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”
  • Talysh: “Žinə Misir”
  • 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”

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