Physical Geography
Cultural Geography
Economic Geography
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Economic Geography
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[The text of the following was written by Scott Girhard, San Antonio College from his online course GEOG 1301 World Geography. Used with permission.]
Egypt
Egypt, anchor of the lower Nile Basin occupies a pivotal location in the heart of a realm that extends for over 6,000 miles longitudinally and some 4,000 miles latitudinally.
About 97 percent of the population lives within a dozen miles of the Nile’s banks or its deltas. The river rises and falls seasonally, watering and replenishing crops and fields on its banks. In April and May the river is at its lowest level, a trickle through the desert, but during the summer months it rises reaching its crest at Cairo in October. In ancient times this regime made possible the invention of basin irrigation, earthen dams built, closing off fields along the low banks of the river, and creating numerous artificial basins. The silt-laden river water poured into these basins during flood state. While the water was high the exits were closed trapping valuable deposits of alluvium. When the water levels drop, exits opened allowing water to escape, leaving behind rejuvenated soil ready for sowing. The construction of permanent dams, begun during the 19th century, made possible the perennial irrigation of Egypt’s farmlands. By building a series of artificial barriers across the river (w/locks for navigation) engineers could control the floods, raise the Nile’s water level, free the farmers from their dependence on sharp seasonal fluctuation of the rivers natural regime, expanded the country’s cultivable area and allowed the growing of more than one crop per year on the same field. By mid 1980’s all farmland in Egypt had finally come under perennial irrigation. The greatest of all Nile projects, the Aswan Dam, begun in 1958 (by Soviet financial aid) and finished in 1971 creates the large artificial reservoir, Lake Nasser, the effect of this dam was to increase Egypt’s arable land by nearly 50 percent and to provide oil poor Egypt with about 40 percent of its electricity.
The Nile Delta’s channels are now controlled as the river itself and they irrigate twice as much land as upper and middle Egypt combined. The more intensive use of the Nile’s water and silt upstream are depriving the delta of much needed replenishment. The low lying delta is subsiding creating fears of salt-water intrusion from the Mediterranean damaging vital soils. Egypt’s substance farmers (fellahen) still struggle to make their living off the land as did the peasants 5,000 years ago. Many agricultural techniques once agriculture innovations, have not changed over the years. Farmland per capita has declined as population growth nullifies gains in agricultural productivity. Egypt remains this realms most important and influential country, lying spatially, culturally and ideologically at the heart of the Arab world. Long under the influence of foreigners, Egypt reasserted itself in the 1950’s, throwing off the monarchy and nationalizing the Suez Canal. After two disastrous wars with Israel in 1967-1973, Egypt was in desperate need of foreign aid to repair its war damaged economy. After a series of peace talks with Israel, a peace accord was signed in 1978 resulting in Egypt’s expulsion from the Arab League. Today Egypt is under pressure from militants in the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood; an extremist organization that has resulted to violence and intimidation to promote its goal of an Islamic republic.
The six subregions of Egypt are the Nile Delta, Middle Egypt, Upper Egyptian Nile from Thebes to the Sudan border, Western Desert containing several large oases and Eastern Desert & Red Sea Coast.
The majority of Egyptians live and work in lower and middle Egypt, the country’s core area. Metropolitan Cairo is home to 1/6 of Egypt’s population and the largest urban area on the African continent, here the Nile Valley opens into the delta. Below Cairo, in the delta to the north, lie vast fields of the cotton that constitute Egypt’s main cash crop (exported in raw form as well as finished textiles). Above the capital, food crops dominate in the Nile, hugging strip of farmlands that is Middle East. Despite the expansion of its irrigated croplands, Egypt in the mid 1990’s imported more than 60 percent of the food it needs and population growth continues at 2.5 percent annually. Egypt’s planners know that reducing this rather high growth rate would improve the economic situation, but fundamentalist Muslims object to any programs that promote family planning. The government is wary of militant Islam. Development gains are wiped or by demographics.
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