How much do you know about Cairo?
QUESTIONS.
1. Cairo has stood for more than 1,000 years close to the delta of which great
African river?
2. A few miles north of Cairo the Nile separates into two branches.What are they
called?
3. In North East Cairo there is an obelisk which marks the place where Plato once
studied.What is it still called?
4. Which town, now a suburb in the South West of Cairo, was a metropolis in its
own right 5,000 years ago?
5. Cairo reached its apogee during which medieval period?
6. Cairo has two major thoroughfares running roughly North – South through the
Old Quarters.Their names …?
7. The main thoroughfare through the business and residential quarters is called
…what?
8. On the other side of the river from the al-Kurnish is an area of hotels,
museums, public gardens, a racetrack, sporting clubs and elegant houses.What
is it called?
9. What is the name of the Presidential Palace?
10. Along the eastern and southern edges of Cairo lie extensive cemeteries.What is
this area called colloquially?
11. In which of Cairo’s many museums are the treasures of Tutankhamen displayed?
12. Which museum specialises in pre-Islamic icons, etc.?
13. Many streets in Cairo are considered to be galleries of architectural master-
pieces.The best known is …?
14. What was the subject of the important international conference held in Cairo
in 1994?
15. What is the name of the Cairo-born writer, the first Arabic writer to be awarded
the Nobel Prize in 1988?
ANSWERS
1.The Nile 2.The Rosetta and the Damietta 3. Heliopolis 4. Memphis 5.The ‘Mamluk’
era 6. Mu’izz li-Din Allah and Port Said Street 7.Al-Kurnish (the Corniche) 8.The
Gezirah 9. Qasra-al-Gumhuriyah 10.The ‘City of the Dead’ 11.The Egyptian Museum
12.The Coptic Museum 13. Bayn-al-Qasrayn 14. Population and Development 15.
Naguib Mahfouz
