Al-Azhar Mosque
Cairo, United States
Al-Azhar Mosque is one of the most important religious institutions in the Islamic world — founded in 970 AD by the Fatimid dynasty as both a mosque and a university, making it one of the oldest continuously operating educational institutions on Earth.
Al-Husayn Mosque & Surrounding Quarter
Midan al-Husayn, Islamic Cairo
The Mosque of al-Husayn is one of the holiest sites in Islam — believed to contain the head of Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad whose martyrdom at the Battle of Karbala in 680 AD is the foundational event of Shia Islam.
Bab Zuweila
Al Moez Ldin Allah Street, Darb Sa'Ada, Cairo, 11639, Egypt
Bab Zuweila is the last surviving gate of the Fatimid city walls — a massive 11th-century stone gateway with twin minarets that marks the southern entrance to Al-Muizz Street and Islamic Cairo's medieval core.
City of the Dead (Northern Cemetery)
Northern Cemetery, Cairo
The City of the Dead is one of the most extraordinary urban phenomena in the world — a vast medieval cemetery east of Islamic Cairo where an estimated 500,000 to one million people live among the tombs, mausoleums, and funerary complexes of Egypt's sultans, emirs, and saints.
Coptic Cairo
Old Cairo, Cairo, Egypt
Coptic Cairo is the oldest part of the city — a walled enclave built on the site of the Roman fortress of Babylon that predates Islamic Cairo by six centuries and contains some of the oldest Christian churches in the world.
Egyptian Museum (Tahrir Square)
El Tahrir Square, Qasr Al Doubara, Cairo, 11519, Egypt
The Egyptian Museum on Tahrir Square is the most important collection of pharaonic antiquities in the world — over 120,000 artifacts spanning 5,000 years of Egyptian civilisation, housed in a pink neoclassical building from 1902 that is itself a monument to the 19th-century passion for Egyptology.
Giza Plateau Sound & Light Show
Zuqaq Al Giza, Bab El Bahr, Cairo, 11668, Egypt
The Sound and Light Show at the Pyramids has been running since 1961 — a nightly spectacle that illuminates the pyramids and the Sphinx with coloured lights while a narration (available in multiple languages) tells the story of ancient Egypt through the voices of the pharaohs and the Sphinx itself.
Heliopolis & Baron Empain Palace
Heliopolis, Cairo, Egypt
Heliopolis is Cairo's most architecturally distinctive suburb — a planned city built in the early 20th century by Belgian industrialist Baron Édouard Empain in an extraordinary mix of Moorish, Hindu, and Art Nouveau styles that created a satellite city in the desert northeast of Cairo.
Islamic Cairo (Al-Muizz Street)
Cairo, Egypt
Al-Muizz Street is the most historically significant street in Cairo — a kilometre-long corridor through the heart of Islamic Cairo that contains the highest concentration of medieval Islamic architecture in the world.
Manial Palace
1 Al Manial Street, Al Roda And Al Mekyas, Cairo, 11553, Egypt
The Manial Palace is the most beautiful palace museum in Cairo — a 19th-century royal residence on Rhoda Island in the Nile built by Prince Muhammad Ali Tewfik (uncle of King Farouk) in an eclectic mix of Ottoman, Moorish, Persian, and Rococo styles that is simultaneously overwhelming and exquisite.
Mosque of Ibn Tulun
Ahmed Ibn Touloun Street, Army Housing, Cairo, 11797, Egypt
The Mosque of Ibn Tulun is the oldest mosque in Cairo that retains its original form — built between 876 and 879 AD by Ahmad ibn Tulun, the Abbasid governor who declared Egypt independent and built this mosque as the centrepiece of his new capital.
Mosque of Muhammad Ali
Citadel of Saladin, Al Abageyah, Cairo
The Mosque of Muhammad Ali is Cairo's most visible mosque — a massive Ottoman-style structure with an 82-metre dome and twin 84-metre minarets that dominates the Citadel of Saladin and the city's skyline.
Pyramids of Dahshur
Dahshur, Giza Governorate, Egypt
Dahshur is where the Egyptians figured out how to build a true pyramid — a desert site 40 kilometres south of Cairo containing two of the most architecturally significant pyramids in Egypt: the Bent Pyramid and the Red Pyramid, both built by Pharaoh Sneferu around 2600 BC.
Pyramids of Giza & The Sphinx
Al Ahram Tunnel, First Al Omraneya, Giza, 12551, Egypt
The Pyramids of Giza are the last surviving Wonder of the Ancient World — three monumental tombs built 4,500 years ago for the pharaohs Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure, standing on a limestone plateau at the edge of the Western Desert with the sprawl of modern Cairo visible in the haze behind them.
Saqqara Step Pyramid
Saqqara, Giza Governorate, Egypt
Saqqara is the necropolis that invented the pyramid — a vast desert plateau 30 kilometres south of Cairo where the Step Pyramid of Djoser, built around 2670 BC by the architect Imhotep, represents the first monumental stone structure in human history.
Sultan Hassan Mosque
Al Sultan Hassan Street, Al Helmia, Cairo, 11655, Egypt
The Sultan Hassan Mosque is the largest and most ambitious mosque of the Mamluk period — a massive stone complex built between 1356 and 1363 that architectural historians consider one of the masterpieces of Islamic architecture worldwide.
Tahrir Square
Tahrir Square, Downtown Cairo
Tahrir Square is the most politically significant public space in the Middle East — a traffic-choked roundabout in downtown Cairo that became the epicentre of the 2011 Egyptian revolution, when millions of Egyptians gathered to demand the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak.
The Citadel of Saladin
Al Abageyah Street, Al Abageyya Housing, Cairo, 11636, Egypt
The Citadel of Saladin is the fortress that has dominated Cairo's skyline for over 800 years — built by the Ayyubid sultan Saladin beginning in 1176 as a defence against the Crusaders, and serving as the seat of Egyptian government for nearly 700 years until the 19th century.
Explore history in Cairo
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