Cairo, Egypt’s capital, is one of the largest cities in Africa and one of the best known in the world. For more than 1,000 years, it has stood on the banks of the Nile River, the longest in the world. The Pyramids of Giza sit close to the city’s southwestern edge. Among the city’s tall structures are over 400 historic buildings from the times of the Roman, Arab and Ottoman empires. The city’s center was named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979. The city's Tahrir Square later became known as the birthplace of the Arab Spring movement. Across Cairo, there are large signs telling its 20 million people of new homes being built in the desert 45 kilometers away. Often, the signs are in Cairo’s overcrowded neighborhoods, with poorly built homes and dirt roads filled with untreated human waste. The signs are ways to suggest that government employees, foreign embassies and rich people will soon leave Cairo for a new capital city in the desert.
