Cairo, Egypt

Cairo (al-Qāhira), which means "the triumphant", is the capital and largest city of Egypt. It is the Arab World's largest and Africa's most populous city. While Al-Qahirah is the official name of the city, in Egyptian Arabic it is called by the dialect's name for the country, Masr. (Egypt's first Arab capital, Fustat, was known as Misr al-Fustat, "City of the Tents".) Cairo was founded by the Fatimid caliphs as a royal enclosure. It replaced Fustat as the seat of the government. It later came under the Mamluks, was ruled by the Ottomans 1517 to 1798, and briefly occupied by Napoleon. Muhammad Ali of Egypt made Cairo the capital of his independent empire from 1805 to 1882, after which the British took control of it until Egypt attained independence in 1922. Cairo has a population of about 8 million people, according to the 2006 population census.