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Geography of Egypt

The geography of Egypt relates to two regions: North Africa and West Asia. Egypt has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea, the River Nile, and the Red Sea. Egypt borders Libya to the west, Israel to the east and Sudan to the south. Egypt has an area of 1,002,450 km2.

The longest straight-line distance in Egypt from north to south is 1420 km, while that from east to west measures 1275 km. Egypt has more than 2,900 km of coastline on the Mediterranean Sea, the Gulf of Suez, and the Gulf of Aqaba. It has an Exclusive Economic Zone of 263,451 km2.

Governorates
Egypt is divided into 28 governorates, which include two city-governortes: Alexandria (Alexandria Governorate) and Cairo (Cairo Governorate). There are nine governorates of Lower Egypt in the Nile Delta region, ten of Upper Egypt along the Nile river south from Cairo to Aswan and five frontier governorates covering Sinai and the deserts that lie west and east of the Nile river.

Natural regions
Egypt is predominantly desert. 35,000 km2 – 3.5% – of the total land area is cultivated and permanently settled. Most of the country lies within the wide band of desert that stretches eastwards from Africa's Atlantic Coast across the continent and into southwest Asia.

Egypt's geological history has produced four major physical regions: Despite covering only about 5% of the total area of Egypt; the Nile Valley and Nile Delta are the most important regions, being the country's only cultivable regions and supporting about 99% of the population. The Nile valley extends approximately 800 km from Aswan to the outskirts of Cairo. The Nile Valley is known as Upper Egypt, while the Nile Delta region is known as Lower Egypt. Steep rocky cliffs rise along the banks of the Nile in some stretches, while other areas along the Nile are flat, with space for agricultural production. In the past, flooding of the Nile during the summer provided silt and water to make agriculture possible on land that is otherwise very dry. Since the construction of the Aswan Dam, agriculture in the Nile valley depends on irrigation. The Nile delta consists of flat, low-lying areas. Some parts of the delta are marshy and water-logged, and thus not suitable for agriculture. Other areas of the delta are used for agriculture.
 * Nile Valley and Nile Delta
 * Western Desert (from the Nile west to the Libyan border)
 * Eastern Desert (extends from the Nile Valley all the way to the Red Sea coast)
 * Sinai Peninsula

Nile Valley and Delta

The Nile Valley and Delta, the most extensive oasis on earth, was created by the world's longest river and its seemingly inexhaustible sources. Without the topographic channel that permits the Nile to flow across the Sahara, Egypt would be entirely desert. The length within Egypt of the River Nile in its northwards course from three central African sources – the White Nile, the Blue Nile, and the Atbara – totals some 1,600 km.

The White Nile, which begins at Lake Victoria in Uganda, supplies about 28% of the Nile's Egyptian waters. In its course from Lake Victoria to Juba in South Sudan, the White Nile's channel drops more than 600 m. In its 1,600-km course from Juba to Khartoum, Sudan's capital, the river descends just 75 m. In South Sudan, the White Nile passes through the Sudd, a wide, flat plain covered with swamp vegetation and slows almost to the point of stagnation.

The Blue Nile, which originates at Lake Tana in Ethiopia, provides on average some 58% of the Nile's Egyptian waters. This river has a steeper gradient and therefore flows more swiftly than the White Nile, which it joins at Khartoum. Unlike the White Nile, the Blue Nile carries a considerable amount of sediment. For several kilometers north of Khartoum, water closer to the eastern bank of the river, coming from the Blue Nile, is visibly muddy, while that closer to the western bank, and coming from the White Nile, is clearer.

The much shorter Atbarah River, which also originates in Ethiopia, joins the main Nile north of Khartoum between the fifth and sixth cataracts (areas of steep rapids) and provides about 14% of the Nile's waters in Egypt. During the low-water season, which runs from January to June, the Atbarah shrinks to a number of pools. But, in late summer, when torrential rains fall on the Ethiopian Highlands, the Atbarah provides 22% of the Nile's flow.

The Blue Nile has a similar pattern. It contributes 17% of the Nile's waters in the low-water season and 68% during the high-water season. In contrast, the White Nile provides only 10% of the Nile's waters during the high-water season but contributes more than 80% during the low-water period. Thus, before the Aswan High Dam was completed in 1971, the White Nile watered the Egyptian stretch of the river throughout the year, whereas the Blue Nile, carrying seasonal rain from Ethiopia, caused the Nile to overflow its banks and deposit a layer of fertile mud over adjacent fields. The great flood of the main Nile usually occurred in Egypt during August, September, and October, but it sometimes began as early as June at Aswan and often did not completely wane until January.

The Nile enters Egypt a few kilometers north of Wadi Halfa, a Sudanese town that was completely rebuilt on high ground when its original site was submerged in the reservoir created by the Aswan High Dam. As a result of the dam's construction, the Nile actually begins its flow into Egypt as Lake Nasser, which extends southwards from the dam for 320 km to the border and for an additional 158  km within Sudan. Lake Nasser's waters fill the area through Lower Nubia (Upper Egypt and northern Sudan) within the narrow canyon between the cliffs of sandstone and granite created by the flow of the river over many centuries.

Below Aswan, the cultivated floodplain strip widens to as much as twenty km. North of Isna (160 km north of Aswan), the plateau on both sides of the valley rises to as much as 550 m above sea level; at Qina (some 90  km north of Isna) the 300-m limestone cliffs force the Nile to change course towards the southwest for about 60  km before it turns northwest for about 160  km to Asyut. Northward from Asyut, the escarpments on both sides diminish, and the valley widens to a maximum of 22 km.

At Cairo, the Nile spreads out over what was once a broad estuary, subsequently filled by silt deposits to form what is now a fertile, fan-shaped delta some 250 km wide at its seaward extremity and extending about 160 km from north to south. The Nile Delta covers approximately 22,000 km2 (roughly equivalent in area to that of Massachusetts). According to historical accounts from the first century AD, seven branches of the Nile once ran through the delta. According to later accounts, the Nile had, by around the twelfth century, just six branches.

Since then, nature and man have closed all but two main outlets: the east branch, Damietta (also known as Dumyat; 240 km long), and the west branch, Rosetta (235  km long). Both outlets are named after the ports located at their respective mouths. A network of drainage and irrigation canals supplements these remaining outlets. In the north, near the coast, the Nile delta embraces a series of salt marshes and lakes, the most notable among which are Idku, Al Burullus, and Manzilah.

The fertility and productivity of the land adjacent to the Nile depend largely on the silt deposited by floodwaters. Archaeological research indicates that people once lived at a much higher elevation along the river than they do today, probably because the river was higher or the floods more severe. The timing and amount of annual flow were always unpredictable. Measurements of annual flows as low as 1.2 billion m3 and as high as 4.25 billion m3 have been recorded. For centuries Egyptians attempted to predict and take advantage of these flows and thereby moderate the severity of floods.

The construction of dams on the Nile, particularly the Aswan High Dam, transformed the mighty river into a large and predictable irrigation ditch. Lake Nasser, the world's largest artificial lake, has enabled planned use of the Nile regardless of the amount of rainfall in Central Africa and East Africa. The dams have also affected the Nile Valley's fertility, which was dependent for centuries not only on the water brought to the arable land but also on the materials left by the water.

Researchers have estimated that beneficial silt deposits in the valley began about 10,000 years ago. The average annual deposit of arable soil through the course of the river valley amounted to some nine metres. Analysis of the flow revealed that 10.7 million tons of solid matter passed Cairo each year.

Today the Aswan High Dam obstructs most of this sediment, now retained in Lake Nasser. The reduction in annual silt deposits has contributed to rising water tables and increasing soil salinity in the Delta, the erosion of the river's banks in Upper Egypt, and the erosion of the alluvial fan along the shore of the Mediterranean Sea.

Western Desert
The Western Desert covers an area of some 700,000 km2, thereby accounting for around two-thirds of Egypt's total land area. This immense desert to the west of the Nile spans the area from the Mediterranean Sea southwards to the Sudanese border. The desert's Jilf al Kabir Plateau, at a mean altitude of some 1000 m, constitutes an exception to the uninterrupted territory of basement rocks covered by layers of horizontally bedded sediments forming a massive plain or low plateau. The Great Sand Sea lies within the desert's plain and extends from the Siwa Oasis to Jilf al Kabir. Escarpments (ridges) and deep depressions (basins) exist in several parts of the Western Desert, and no rivers or streams drain into or out of the area.

The government has considered the Western Desert a frontier region and has divided it into two governorates at about the twenty-eighth parallel: Matruh to the north and New Valley (Al Wadi al Jadid) to the south. There are seven important depressions in the Western Desert, and all are considered oases except the largest, Qattara, the water of which is salty. The Qattara Depression, which includes the country's lowest point, encompasses 19605 km2, which is similar to the size of Lake Ontario. It is largely below sea level and is 133 m below sea level at the lowest. Badlands, salt marshes and salt lakes cover the sparsely inhabited Qattara Depression.

Limited agricultural production, the presence of some natural resources, and permanent settlements are found in the other six depressions, all of which have fresh water provided by the Nile or by local groundwater. The Siwah Oasis, close to the Libyan border and west of Qattara, is isolated from the rest of Egypt but has sustained life since ancient times. The Siwa's cliff-hung Temple of Amun was renowned for its oracles for more than 1,000 years. Herodotus and Alexander the Great were among the many illustrious people who visited the temple in the pre-Christian era.

The other major oases form a topographic chain of basins extending from the Faiyum Oasis (sometimes called the Fayyum Depression) which lies 60 km southwest of Cairo, south to the Bahariya, Farafirah, and Dakhilah oases before reaching the country's largest oasis, Kharijah. A brackish lake, Birket Qarun, at the northern reaches of Al Fayyum Oasis, drained into the Nile in ancient times. For centuries sweet water artesian wells in the Fayyum Oasis have permitted extensive cultivation in an irrigated area that extends over 1800 km2.

Eastern Desert

The topographic features of the desert region east of the Nile differ from those to the west of the Nile. The Eastern Desert is relatively mountainous. The elevation rises abruptly from the Nile, and a downward-sloping plateau of sand gives way within 100 km to arid, defoliated, rocky hills running north and south between the Sudan border and the Delta. The hills reach elevations of more than 1,900 m.

The region's most prominent feature is the easterly chain of rugged mountains, the Red Sea Hills, which extend from the Nile Valley eastward to the Gulf of Suez and the Red Sea. This elevated region has a natural drainage pattern that rarely functions because of insufficient rainfall. It also has a complex of irregular, sharply cut wadis that extend westward toward the Nile. The desert environment extends all the way to the Red Sea coast.

Sinai Peninsula
The Sinai Peninsula is a triangular-shaped peninsula, about 61,100 km2 in area slightly smaller than Latvia (64 573 km2). Similar to the desert, the peninsula contains mountains in its southern sector that are a geological extension of the Red Sea Hills, the low range along the Red Sea coast that includes Mount Catherine (Jabal Katrinah), the country's highest point, at 2,642 m above sea-level. The Red Sea may have been named after these mountains, which are red.

The southern side of the peninsula has a sharp escarpment that subsides after a narrow coastal shelf that slopes into the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba. The elevation of Sinai's southern rim is about 1,000 m. Moving northward, the elevation of this limestone plateau decreases. The northern third of Sinai is a flat, sandy coastal plain, which extends from the Suez Canal into the Gaza Strip and Israel.

Before the Israeli military occupied Sinai during the June 1967 War (Arab-Israeli war, also known as the Six-Day War), a single Egyptian governorate administered the whole peninsula. By 1982 after all of Sinai was returned to Egypt, the central government divided the peninsula into two governorates. North Sinai has its capital at Al Arish and the South Sinai has its capital in El Tor.

The abundance of life in the Sinai Peninsula may not be immediately apparent. This again has its roots in the way in which the animals of the desert have adapted to life here. Many species, mammals especially, but also reptiles and even birds such as owls, are nocturnal. They spend the daylight hours in the relative cool of burrows, under boulders or in crevices and cracks in the rock. Many of these creatures will only be apparent from their tracks and trails or from a fleeting glimpse of a diminutive gerbil, or zig-zigging hare, in the car headlights at night. Even those animals that do brave the heat of the day are normally only active in the early morning or evening.

Urban and rural areas
In the 1971 census, 57 percent of Egypt's population was counted as rural, including those residing in agricultural areas in the Nile Valley and Delta, as well as the much smaller number of persons living in desert areas. Rural areas differ from the urban in terms of poverty, fertility rates, and other social factors. Agriculture is a key component of the economy in rural areas, though some people are employed in the tourist industry or other non-farm occupations. In 1992, the percentage of Egypt's population employed in agriculture was 33 percent. The agricultural industry is dependent on irrigation from the Nile river.

Extreme points
This is a list of the extreme points of Egypt, the points that are farther north, south, east or west than any other location.

 * Northernmost point – unnamed headland immediately north-west of Sidi Barrani, Matruh Governorate
 * Easternmost point – Ras Hadarba (Cape Elba), Red Sea Governorate*
 * Southernmost point – Jabal Bartazuga on the Sudanese border, Red Sea Governorate **
 * Westernmost point – unnamed point on the border with Libya immediately east of the ruin of Qasr al Qarn in Libya, Matruh Governorate
 * * Ras Hadarba lies within the Hala'ib triangle which is claimed by Sudan but occupied by Egypt. If it is excluded, then Egypt's easternmost point is the Ras Banas peninsula on the mainland or, including islands, Mukawwa Island
 * ** Egypt's southernmost point lies in the Bir Tawil region, an area that is commonly included as part of Egypt but is not claimed by it. If this area is excluded then Egypt has no southernmost point, its southern border being formed by the 22nd parallel north.

title: Geography of Egypt


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Demographics of Egypt

Egypt is the most populous country in the Middle East, and the fourth-most populous on the African continent, after Nigeria, Ethiopia and Democratic Republic of the Congo. About 95% of the country's 104 million people (July 2023) live along the banks of the Nile and in the Nile Delta, which fans out north of Cairo; and along the Suez Canal. These regions are among the world's most densely populated, containing an average of over 1,540 people per km2, as compared to 96 persons per km2 for the country as a whole.

Small communities spread throughout the desert regions of Egypt are clustered around historic trade and transportation routes. The government has tried with mixed success to encourage migration to newly irrigated land reclaimed from the desert. However, the proportion of the population living in rural areas has continued to decrease as people move to the megacities in search of employment and a higher standard of living.

According to the Peterson Institute for International Economics and other proponents of demographic structural approach (cliodynamics), the basic problem Egypt has is an unemployment rate driven by a demographic youth bulge: with the number of new people entering the job force at about 4% a year, unemployment in Egypt is almost 10 times as high for college graduates as it is for people who have gone through elementary school, particularly educated urban youth, who comprised most of the people that were seen out in the streets during the Egyptian revolution of 2011. An estimated 51.2% of Egyptians are under the age of 25, with just 4.3% over the age of 65, making it one of the most youthful populations in the world.

Population size and distribution
Egypt has a population of 109,500,000 (2023). According to the OECD/World Bank statistics population growth in Egypt from 1990 to 2008 was 23.7 million and 41%.

Age distribution
Data taken from Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics.

Percentage distribution of population in censuses by age group

Population estimates by sex and age group (1 July 2010):

Population estimates by sex and age group (1 July 2012):

Population estimates by sex and age group (1 January 2013):

Population estimates by sex and age group (1 July 2013):

Population estimates by sex and age group (1 July 2014) in thousands:

Household population by age and sex (DHS 2014).

Total population in thousands: 114 428 (Males 56 926, Females 57 501)

[ Population estimates by sex and age group (1 January 2015):

Historical and present population distribution:

Urban and rural population
Figures from CAPMAS:

Population projections
The Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) had released high/medium/low population projections for 2011–2031 based on Final Results of 2006 Population Census. The 2020 high variant was 92.6 million, the medium – 91.0 million, the low – 90.0 million. The 2030 high variant is 104.4 million, the medium – 101.7 million, the low – 99.8 million. However the information could be misleading as the 2013 population figure of 84.6 million is higher than the projected high of 83 million. In fact, due to an unexpected rise in the fertility rate (from 3.0 to 3.5), the population already surpassed 91 million on 5 June 2016 while reaching 92 million on 30 November, average population age remaining stable despite a rising life expectancy. Furthermore, as of 2022, the population of Egypt reached 111 million, which is a figure even higher than what is projected for 2030.

Vital statistics
Demographic statistics according to the World Population Review in 2022.

 * One birth every 12 seconds
 * One death every 52 seconds
 * One net migrant every 13 minutes
 * Net gain of one person every 17 seconds

Vital statistics:

Fertility rate (Demographic Health Survey)
Fertility rate (TFR) (wanted fertility rate) and CBR (crude birth rate):

Life expectancy at birth
Average life expectancy at age 0 of the total population.

Urban and Rural Population of Governorates
Data taken from CAPMAS:

Population density by governorate

As of 1 July 2014; data taken from CAPMAS: Information for population is in thousands, pop density – persons/km2 and area is in km2.

Ethnic groups
The CIA World Factbook lists Egyptians as 99.7%, and "other" as 0.3% (2006 census). "Other" refers to people who are not citizens of Egypt, who come to Egypt to work for international companies, diplomats, etc. The vast majority of the population of Egypt consists of Egyptians including Copts, the native Egyptians make up 95% of the population. The vast majority of Egyptians are speakers of the Egyptian Arabic dialect.

Minorities in Egypt include the Berber-speaking community of the Siwa Oasis (Siwis) and the Nubian people clustered along the Nile in the southernmost part of Egypt. There are also sizable minorities of Beja and Dom. There are also refugees mainly composed of Sudanese, and the over all refugees are estimated to be around 3–5 million, those from war-zone areas like Iraq, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, and Eritrea.

The country was also host to many different communities during the European occupation period, including Greeks, Italians, and also from war-torn areas; the Lebanese, Syro-Lebanese, and other minority groups like Jews, Armenians, Turks and Albanians, though most either left or were compelled to leave after political developments in the 1950s. The country still hosts some 90,000 refugees and asylum seekers, mostly Palestinians and Sudanese.

Other sources give more detailed statistics, including the Beja (ca. 88,000), the Nubians (ca. 300,000 in 1996), Dom (ca. 230,000 in 1996), Berbers (Siwis) (ca. 5,000).

Languages
Arabic is the official language of Egypt, with the vast majority of Egyptians speaking Egyptian Arabic. In The Upper Nile valley regions, Sa'idi Arabic is prevalent. The Coptic language is still used in the Coptic church for the majority of prayers, hymns, masses, and meditations. English is widely understood. Siwa language is used in ethnic Berber tribal areas in the western desert (Siwa), and Nubian language is widely used among the ethnic Nubians in the southern areas.

Religions
According to the CIA World Factbook, 90% of the population is Muslim and 10% is Christian (majority Coptic Orthodox, other Christians include Armenian Apostolic, Catholic, Maronite, Orthodox, and Anglican).

 * Muslim 90% (mostly Sunni)
 * Christianity 10%
 * Baháʼí: fewer than 2,000 individuals (< 0.003%)
 * Judaism: fewer than 500 individuals

Egyptians abroad
Egyptians have a long history of mobility, primarily across the Arab world, but emigration became much more popular once it was recognised as a right in the 1971 Constitution. According to the International Organization for Migration, an estimated 2.7 million Egyptians live abroad and contribute actively to the development of their country through remittances (US$7.8 billion in 2009), circulation of human and social capital, as well as investment. Approximately 70% of Egyptian migrants live in Arab countries (923,600 in Saudi Arabia, 332,600 in Libya, 226,850 in Jordan, 190,550 in Kuwait with the rest elsewhere in the region) and the remaining 30% are living mostly North America (318,000 in the United States, 110,000 in Canada) and Europe (90,000 in Italy).

Autosomal DNA
Almarri, Mohamed A et al. (2021) analyzed present-day Middle-Eastern groups. They modelled the components of a sample from Egypt as being made up of four ancient populations: 45% Levant Neolithic/Natufian, 33% Iran Neolithic, 15% Mota, and 8% Eastern Hunter Gatherer.

mtDNA
Saunier, Jessica et al. (2009) sequenced mitogenomes from 277 unrelated Egyptian individuals. The results showed that 20.6% of the Egyptian mtDNA chromosomes were of Sub-Saharan African origin, while 79.4% were of West Eurasian.

Y-DNA
Listed here are some of the human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups in Egypt, according to Bekada, Asmahan et al. (2013).

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Demographics of Egypt


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Politics of Egypt

The politics of Egypt takes place within the framework of a republican semi-presidential system of government. The current political system was established following the 2013 Egyptian military coup d'état, and the takeover of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. In the current system, the President is elected for a six-year term. Furthermore, the President has the power to dissolve Parliament through Article 137. The Parliament of Egypt is the oldest legislative chamber in Africa and the Middle East. The unicameral Parliament has the ability to impeach the President through Article 161. With 2020 elections to the new Senate, the chamber became bicameral.

Presidency
The position was created after the Egyptian Revolution of 1952; Mohammed Naguib was the first to hold the position. Before 2005, the Parliament chose a candidate for the presidency and the people voted, in a referendum, whether or not they approved the proposed candidate for president. After the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, a new presidential election was held 2012, it was the first free and fair elections in Egypt's political history. The Muslim Brotherhood declared early 18 June 2012, that its candidate, Mohamed Morsi, won the election. After a wave of public discontent with autocratic excesses of the Muslim Brotherhood government of President Mohamed Morsi; the beginning of July 2013 marked the onset of the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état, following the decision of General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, to remove Morsi from office and suspend the constitution of 2012. El-Sisi was then elected head of state in the 2014 presidential election. On 8 June 2014, Abdel Fatah el-Sisi was officially sworn in as Egypt's new president.

Article 133 of Egypt's constitution of 2012 determines a 4-year period of presidential mandate, to which the candidate can only be re-elected once. According to the document, to be eligible the candidate “must be Egyptian born to Egyptian parents, must have carried no other citizenship, must have civil and political right, cannot be married to a non-Egyptian,” and not be younger than 40 Gregorian years.

Article 146 declares the president to be the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. However, to declare war or to send armed forces outside state territory, the president must consult the National Defense Council and have the approval of the majority of the MPs.

In April 2019, Egypt's parliament extended presidential terms from four to six years.

A constitutional referendum was held in Egypt from 20 to 22 April 2019, with overseas voting taking place between 19 and 21 April. The proposed changes allowed President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to remain in power until 2030; under the previous version of the constitution, he would have been barred from contesting the next elections, set to take place in 2022. The changes were approved by 88.83% of voters who voted, with a 44% turnout.

Legislative branch
Parliament meets for one eight-month session each year; under special circumstances the President of the Republic can call an additional session. Even though the powers of the Parliament have increased since the 1980 Amendments of the Constitution, the Parliament continues to lack the powers to balance the extensive powers of the President.

The House of Representatives (Magles el Nowwáb)
The House of Representatives is the principal legislative body. It consists of a maximum 596 representatives with 448 are directly elected through FPTP and another 120 elected through proportional representation in 4 nationwide districts while the President can appoint up to 28. The House sits for a five-year term but can be dissolved earlier by the President.

The Constitution reserves fifty per cent of the House may force the resignation of the executive cabinet by voting a motion of censure. For this reason, the Prime Minister and his cabinet are necessarily from the dominant party or coalition in the assembly. In the case of a president and house from opposing parties, this leads to the situation known as cohabitation.

The recent elections were held in 2015 and most recently in 2020.

The Consultative Council (Maglis El-Shura)
The Shura Council was the 264-member upper house of Parliament created in 1980. In the Shura Council, 176 members were directly elected and 88 members were appointed by the President of the Republic for six-year terms. One half of the Shura Council was renewed every three years.

The Shura Council's legislative powers were limited. On most matters of legislation, the People's Assembly retained the last word in the event of a disagreement between the two houses.

The Shura Council was abolished in the 2014 constitution.

Parliamentary Elections
Political parties in Egypt are numerous and exceeds 100 parties. The formation of political parties based on religion, race or gender is prohibited by the Constitution. Before the revolution in 2011, power was concentrated in the hands of the President of the Republic and the National Democratic Party which retained a super-majority in the People's Assembly.

Many new political parties that mostly were fragile formed in anticipation of running candidates in the 2011–12 Egyptian parliamentary election that was considered the first free one since the 1952 revolution. However the elected Parliament was dissolved by the constitutional court and new elections were held in 2015.

Below the national level, authority is exercised by and through governors and mayors appointed by the central government and by popularly elected local councils.

Political parties and elections
According to the Egyptian Constitution, political parties are allowed to exist. Religious political parties are not allowed as it would not respect the principle of non-interference of religion in politics and that religion has to remain in the private sphere to respect all beliefs. Also forbidden are political parties supporting militia formations or having an agenda that is contradictory to the constitution and its principles, or threatening the country's stability such as national unity between Muslim Egyptians and Christian Egyptians.

As of 2015, there are more than 100 registered political parties in Egypt. The largest were the Free Egyptians Party, New Wafd Party, Conference Party, and the Egyptian Social Democratic Party.

In December 2020, final results of the parliamentary election confirmed a clear majority of the seats for Egypt's Mostaqbal Watn (Nation's Future) Party, which strongly supports president El-Sisi. The party even increased its majority, partly because of new electoral rules.

Civil society
Egyptians had lived under emergency law from 1967 until 31 May 2012 (with one 18-month break starting in 1980). Emergency laws have been extended every three years since 1981. These laws sharply circumscribed any non-governmental political activity: street demonstrations, non-approved political organizations, and unregistered financial donations were formally banned. However, since 2000, these restrictions have been violated in practice. In 2003, the agenda shifted heavily towards local democratic reforms, opposition to the succession of Gamal Mubarak as president, and rejection of violence by state security forces. Groups involved in the latest wave include PCSPI, the Egyptian Movement for Change (Kefaya), and the Association for Egyptian Mothers.

Substantial peasant activism exists on a variety of issues, especially related to land rights and land reform. A major turning point was the 1997 repeal of Nasser-era land reform policies under pressure for structural adjustment. A pole for this activity is the Land Center for Human Rights.

The Egyptian Revolution of 2011, inspired by the recent revolution in Tunisia, forced the resignation of President Mubarak and the Military Junta that succeeded him abrogated the Constitution and promised free and fair elections under a new one. On August 15, 2015, President al-Sisi enacted a new Counter-Terrorism Law, which Human Rights Watch claims "mimics" language "already contained in Egypt's decades-old Emergency Law". In Article 2, one of many references include terrorism as "any use of intimidation for the purpose of disturbing public order; harms national unity, social peace, or national security". Following to Section 2, the President "may issue a decree to take appropriate measures to maintain security and public order", addressed in Article 53. This includes "the power to order six-month curfews or evacuations in defined areas, subject to a majority vote in parliament within seven days, or cabinet approval if parliament is not in session."

Political pressure
Before the revolution, Mubarak tolerated limited political activity by the Brotherhood for his first two terms, then moved more aggressively to block its influence. Trade unions and professional associations are officially sanctioned. In 2014, in Upper Egypt, several newspapers reported that the region of Upper Egypt wants to secede from Egypt to try to improve living standards.

Foreign relations
The permanent headquarters for the League of Arab States (The Arab League) is located in Cairo. The Secretary-General of the League has traditionally been an Egyptian. Former Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abu El Ghet is the present Secretary-General of the Arab League. The Arab League moved out of Egypt to Tunis in 1978 as a protest at the peace treaty with Israel but returned in 1989.

Egypt was the first Arab state to establish diplomatic relations with the state of Israel, after the signing of the Egypt–Israel peace treaty at the Camp David Accords. Egypt has a major influence amongst other Arab states, and has historically played an important role as a mediator in resolving disputes between various Arab nations, and in the Israeli–Palestinian dispute. Most Arab nations still give credence to Egypt playing that role, though its effects are often limited.

Former Egyptian Deputy Prime Minister Boutros Boutros-Ghali served as Secretary General of the United Nations from 1991 to 1996.

A territorial dispute with Sudan over an area known as the Hala'ib Triangle has meant that diplomatic relations between the two remain strained.

title: Politics of Egypt