Cairo travel guide

Top 10 sights in Cairo

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

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   1© Nina · CC BY 2.5

   Great Pyramid of Giza

   The tomb of Khufu, built around 2560 BC from some two million blocks and standing a hundred and forty-six metres when its casing was complete. It was the tallest structure on earth for nearly four thousand years and is the only ancient wonder still standing.

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2. 

   2© KennyOMG · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Giza pyramid complex

   The three great pyramids and the Sphinx on one limestone plateau, raised in the fourth dynasty between about 2600 and 2500 BC. Khufu's is the only one of the seven wonders of the ancient world still standing, and at 146 metres it was the tallest building anywhere for close to four thousand years.

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3. 

   3© Ricardo Liberato · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Egyptian pyramids

   Something like a hundred and eighteen pyramids are known in Egypt, built as royal tombs over about a thousand years. The form starts with Djoser's stepped tomb at Saqqara around 2650 BC, is perfected at Giza within a century, and then declines into small rubble-cored structures that have mostly collapsed.

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   4© Ricardo Liberato · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Giza Necropolis

   The wider Giza site takes in far more than the three pyramids: queens' pyramids, mastaba fields for officials, five boat pits, and the village where the workforce was fed on bread and beer. Excavation of the bakeries and barracks there ended the idea that slaves built the place.

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5. 

   5© MusikAnimal · CC BY-SA 3.0

   The Great Sphinx

   A lion with a human head, seventy-three metres long, carved from a single outcrop of limestone left in the quarry that supplied the pyramids. It faces due east and is generally taken to be Khafre, whose causeway runs past it.

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6. 

   6© Holger Uwe Schmitt · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Egyptian Museum

   The museum on Tahrir Square, opened in 1902 and for a century the place where Egyptian antiquity was kept. Its greatest holdings are moving to the new museum at Giza and the royal mummies left in 2021, but the building and its crowded galleries remain worth the hour.

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7. 

   7© Roland Unger · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Heliopolis

   The ancient Iunu, cult centre of the sun god Ra and one of the largest cities in Egypt, now buried under the Cairo suburb of Matariya. Almost nothing stands except a granite obelisk raised by Senusret I around 1950 BC — the oldest obelisk still in its original position anywhere.

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   8© Olaf Tausch · CC BY 3.0

   Pyramid of Djoser

   The first monumental building in stone anywhere, raised at Saqqara around 2670 BC by the architect Imhotep for King Djoser — six mastabas stacked to sixty-two metres. It reopened in 2020 after fourteen years of structural repair.

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9. 

   9© Most likely Hamish2k, the first uploader · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Pyramid of Khafre

   The middle of the three Giza pyramids, built for Khafre and slightly smaller than his father's, though it looks taller because it stands on higher rock. The top still carries the polished casing that once covered all three.

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10. 

    10© Waelmansoory · CC BY-SA 4.0

    Tahrir Square

    The square laid out in 1867 as Cairo was rebuilt on Parisian lines, renamed for liberation after the officers' coup of 1952. In 2011 it held the crowds that brought down Mubarak, and it has been remodelled since.

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   1

   Grand Egyptian Museum

   A museum on the Giza plateau two kilometres from the pyramids, the largest devoted to a single civilisation. It opened in stages and in full in 2025, and shows the whole Tutankhamun find — some five thousand objects — together for the first time.

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   2© Ahmed Al.Badawy from Cairo, Egypt · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Cairo Citadel

   The fortress Saladin began in 1176 on a spur of the Muqattam hills, and the seat of Egyptian government for the next seven hundred years. Muhammad Ali massacred the Mamluk beys in its courtyard in 1811 and then built his mosque on the highest point of it.

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   3© kallerna · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Pyramid of Menkaure

   The smallest of the three main Giza pyramids at sixty-five metres, built for Menkaure and cased in granite at the base. The gash in its north face was made in the twelfth century by a sultan who gave up trying to demolish it after eight months.

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   4

   El-Fustat

   The first Muslim capital of Egypt, founded in 641 by the general who took the country and burned by its own governor in 1168 to keep it from crusaders. Its excavated foundations lie beside Old Cairo, where potters still work.

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   5© Daniel Mayer · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Al-Azhar Mosque

   A mosque founded by the Fatimids between 970 and 972, whose teaching circles grew into what is now among the oldest universities in the world. It remains the most influential centre of Sunni learning.

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   6© Berthold Werner · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Hanging Church

   A Coptic church built on top of the southern gate of the Roman fortress, so that its nave hangs above the old passage — a section of floor is glazed to show the drop. It has been the seat of Coptic patriarchs and is among the oldest churches in Egypt.

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   7© Ahmedsantos · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Cairo Tower

   A 187-metre concrete tower on Zamalek island, finished in 1961, its lattice shaft shaped as a lotus stalk. Egyptians enjoy telling visitors it was built with American money offered to Nasser as a bribe, which he spent on this instead. It was the tallest structure in Africa for a decade.

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   8© Gérard Ducher (user:Néfermaât) · CC BY-SA 2.5

   Abdeen Palace

   A palace built by Khedive Ismail and the main royal residence from 1874 until the monarchy fell in 1952. Its museums of arms, silver and royal gifts are open; the state rooms above are still used for official receptions.

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   9© Ashashyou · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Saint Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral

   The seat of the Coptic Pope, built in Abbassia and consecrated in 1968. The relics of St Mark were flown back from Venice for the opening, eleven centuries after Venetian merchants smuggled them out of Alexandria under a layer of pork.

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10. 

    10© Daniel Mayer · CC BY-SA 4.0

    Babylon Fortress

    A Roman fortress on the east bank of the Nile, rebuilt under Trajan early in the second century to control the canal to the Red Sea. Its round towers still stand in Coptic Cairo with churches built into and above them.

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