Egypt, officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country in North Africa that includes the Sinai Peninsula, a land bridge to Asia. Covering an area of about 1,001,450 km² (386,560 sq mile), Egypt borders Libya to the west, Sudan to the south, and the Gaza Strip and Israel to the east. The northern coast borders the Mediterranean Sea and the eastern coast borders the Red Sea.

Egypt is one of the most populous countries in Africa. The vast majority of its estimated 78 million people (year 2007) live near the banks of the Nile River in an area of about 40,000 km² (15,000 sq mile) where the only arable agricultural land is found. Large areas of land form part of the Sahara Desert and are sparsely inhabited. Around half of Egypt's residents live in urban areas, with the majority spread across the densely populated centres of greater Cairo, Alexandria and other major cities in the Nile Delta.

Egypt is famous for its ancient civilization and some of the world's most famous monuments, including the Giza pyramid complex and the Great Sphinx; the southern city of Luxor contains a particularly large number of ancient artifacts such as the Karnak Temple and the Valley of the Kings. Today, Egypt is widely regarded as an important political and cultural centre of the Middle East.

Foreign relations

Egypt's foreign policy operates along moderate lines. Factors such as population size, historical events, military strength, diplomatic expertise and a strategic geographical position give Egypt extensive political influence in Africa and the Middle East. Cairo has been a crossroads of regional commerce and culture for centuries, and its intellectual and Islamic institutions are at the center of the region's social and cultural development.

The permanent Headquarters of the Arab League are located in Cairo and the Secretary General of the Arab League has traditionally been an Egyptian. Former Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa is the current Secretary General. The Arab League briefly moved from Egypt to Tunis in 1978, as a protest to the signing by Egypt of a peace treaty with Israel, but returned in 1989.

Egypt was the first Arab state to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, with the signing of the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty in 1979. 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 states, and in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Most Arab states still give credence to Egypt playing that role, though its effects are often limited and recently challenged by ambitious Saudi Arabia and oil rich Gulf States. It is also reported that due to Egypt's indulgence in internal problems and its reluctance to play a positive role in regional matters had lost the country great influence in Africa and the neighbouring countries.

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

The Pyramids of Egypt are among the largest constructions ever built and constitute one of the most potent and enduring symbols of Ancient Egyptian civilization. Most were built during the Old and Middle Kingdom periods.

The number of pyramid structures in Egypt today is reported by most sources as being between 81 and 112, with a majority favouring the higher number. In 1842 Karl Richard Lepsius made a list of pyramids, in which he counted 67, but more have been identified and discovered since his time. The imprecise nature of the count is related to the fact that as many smaller pyramids are in a poor state of preservation and appear as little more than mounds of rubble, they are only now being properly identified and studied by archaeologists. Most are grouped in a number of pyramid fields, the most important of which are listed geographically, from north to south, below.

The Great Sphinx of Giza is a large half-human, half-lion Sphinx statue in Egypt, on the Giza Plateau at the west bank of the Nile River, near modern-day Cairo. It is one of the largest single-stone statues on Earth, and is commonly believed to have been built by ancient Egyptians in the 3rd millennium BC. It is the earliest known monumental sculpture.

The Great Sphinx is one of the world's largest and oldest statues, yet basic facts about it such as the real-life model for the face, when it was built, and by whom, are debated. These questions have collectively earned the title "Riddle of the Sphinx," a nod to its Greek namesake, although this phrase should not be confused with the original Greek legend.

Pharaoh was the ancient Egyptian name for the office of kingship. The term began as a reference to the king's palace, but the meaning loosened over the course of Egyptian history until in the late period it was interchangeable with the Egyptian word for king. Contrary to many languages, the same word was used for any ruler of Egypt, female or male. Such rulers were believed to be the incarnation of Horus.

The ancient Egyptians had an elaborate set of burial rituals and protocols that they believed were necessary to ensure their immortality after death.

These rituals and protocols included mummification, casting of magic spells, and burial with specific grave goods thought to be needed in the afterlife.

The burial customs used by the ancient Egyptians evolved continuously throughout time as old customs were discarded and new ones adopted, but several important elements of the process persist.

Although specific details changed over time, the preparation of the body, the magic rituals involved, and the grave goods provided were all essential parts of a proper Egyptian funeral.

Although many temples are still standing today, others are in ruins while some have disappeared entirely. Pharaoh Ramses II was a particularly prolific builder of temples.

Some known temples include:

• Abu Simbel - Complex of two massive rock temples in southern Egypt on the western bank of the Nile.
• Abydos (Great Temple of Abydos) - Adoration of the early kings, whose cemetery, to which it forms a great funerary chapel, lies behind it.
• Ain el-Muftella (Bahariya Oasis) - Could have served as the city center of El Qasr. It was probably built around the 26th Dynasty.
• Karnak - Once part of the ancient capital of Egypt, Thebes.
• Bani Hasan al Shurruq - Located in Middle Egypt near to Al-Minya and survived the reconstruction of the New Kingdom.
• Edfu - Ptolemaic temple that is located between Aswan and Luxor.
• Temple of Kom Ombo - Controlled the trade routes from Nubia to the Nile Valley.
• Luxor - Built largely by Amenhotep III and Ramesses II, it was the centre of the Opet Festival.
• Medinet Habu (Memorial Temple of Ramesses III) - Temple and a complex of temples dating from the New Kingdom.
• Temple of Hatshepsut - Her mortuary temple complex at Deir el-Bahri with a colonnaded structure of perfect harmony, was built nearly one thousand years before the Parthenon.
• Philae - Island of Philae with Temple of Hathor which was constructed in the 30th Dynasty and expanded into a complex to include Isis (Aset) and Osiris under Greek and Roman rule
• Ramesseum (Memorial Temple of Ramesses II) - The main building, dedicated to the funerary cult, comprised two stone pylons (gateways, some 60 m wide), one after the other, each leading into a courtyard. Beyond the second courtyard, at the centre of the complex, was a covered 48-column hypostyle hall, surrounding the inner sanctuary.
• Dendera Temple complex - Several temples but the all overshadowing building in the complex is the main temple, the Hathor temple.

Ancient Egyptian religion encompasses the beliefs and rituals of Ancient Egypt. It was followed in Egypt for over three thousand years until the establishment of Coptic Christianity and Islam.

Throughout the vast and complex history of Egypt, the dominant beliefs of the ancient Egyptians merged and developed as leaders of different groups gained power. This process continued even after the end of the ancient Egyptian civilization as we know it today. As an example, during the New Kingdom Ra and Amun became Amun-Ra. This "merging" into a single deity is typically referred to as syncretism.

Syncretism should be distinguished from mere groupings, also referred to as "families" such as Amun, Mut, and Khonsu, where no "merging" takes place. Over time, deities took part in multiple syncretic relationships, for instance, the combination of Ra and Horus into Ra-Herakty. However, even when taking part in such a syncretic relationship, the original deities did not become completely "absorbed" into the combined deity, although the individuality of the one was often greatly weakened. Also, these syncretic relationships sometimes involved more than just two deities, for instance, Ptah, Seker, and Osiris, becoming Ptah-Seker-Osiris.

The goddesses followed a similar pattern. Also important to keep in mind is that sometimes the attributes of one deity got closely associated with another, without any "formal" syncretism taking place. For instance, the loose association of Hathor with Isis.

The Nile has been a site of continuous human habitation since at least the Paleolithic era. Evidence of this appears in the form of artifacts and rock carvings along the Nile terraces and in the desert oases. In the 10th millennium BC, a culture of hunter-gatherers and fishers replaced a grain-grinding culture. Climate changes and/or overgrazing around 8000 BC began to desiccate the pastoral lands of Egypt, eventually forming the Sahara. Early tribal peoples migrated to the Nile River where they developed a settled agricultural economy and more centralized society.

By about 6000 BC, organized agriculture and large building construction had appeared in the Nile Valley. During the Neolithic, several predynastic cultures developed independently in Upper and Lower Egypt. The Badarian culture and the successor Naqada series are generally regarded as precursors to Dynastic Egyptian civilization. The earliest known Lower Egyptian site, Merimda, predates the Badarian by about seven hundred years. Contemporaneous Lower Egyptian communities coexisted with their southern counterparts for more than two thousand years, remaining somewhat culturally separate, but maintaining frequent contact through trade. The earliest known evidence of Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions appear during the predynastic period on Naqada III pottery vessels, dated to about 3200 BC.