Cairo

Cairo (Arabic: القاهرة al-qāhirah; lit. "the conqueror") is the capital city of the Egyptian Arab Republic and most populous city of the Arab Union. Forming the cultural and economic capital of the Arab Union, Cairo is the fifth most populous city in the world and a global city. It is home to Garden City, capital of the Arab Union's film and music industry, home to over 50 active film studios and 30 commercial record labels as well as a major industry-related tourism scene. Cairo is also home to the largest and wealthiest central business district in the Arab Union, located just north of Tahrir Square, which includes more major corporate and financial headquarters than any other locale in the union, as well as the Cairo Stock Exchange, the largest stock exchange in the Arab Union and third-largest in the world by market capitalisation and by number of listed companies valued at US$100 million or more. Many multinational corporations, global media conglomerates, and other international organisations have regional headquarters in Cairo, which is also home to the world's second-oldest institution of higher learning, Al-Azhar University. Cairo has an additional ten full-sized universities and countless other colleges and higher education programs, making it also a major centre of education.

As the capital of the Egyptian Arab Republic, Cairo hosts the Egyptian Arab Congress, the republican government's legislative branch, which meets in the Parliament Building just northeast of the Garden City district, and a kilometre west of Abdeen Palace, official residence of the Premier of Egypt and meeting place of his cabinet. Cairo is also home to the Supreme Court of Egypt, located just a few blocks north of Tahrir Square in Downtown Cairo, directly across 26th of July Street from the Egyptian Court of Appeals and the Cairo Court of Appeals.

Cairo proper is coterminous with Cairo Governorate, and it thus possesses the jurisdiction of a municipality, district and governorate simultaneously. Cairo Governorate forms the more populous of the two centres of the Cairo-Suez Metropolitan Area (the other being the City of Suez), which includes multiple districts and municipalities within the surrounding governorates of Giza, Qalyubia, Ismailia and West Suez in the Egyptian Arab Republic, as well as the governorate of East Suez in the Palestinian Arab Republic.

At the start of 2020, the population of Cairo proper (Cairo Governorate) was estimated at 11.45 million, and the Cairo-Suez agglomeration at 31.23 million, making Cairo and Cairo-Suez the largest city and metropolitan area, respectively, in the Arab Union. Cairo and Suez's shared metropolitan area is served by the Capital Region Metro, a modern rapid transit system which connects virtually all communities within the greater metropolitan area, including 23 lines and 1,718 individual stations, with a two major termini: one at Ramses Station in Cairo and the other at Union Station in Suez. Cairo is also connected to further cities via ARRAIL's intercity passenger train routes, which operate out of Ramses Station in Cairo and Union Station in Suez, stopping at other major junctions in the metropolitan area before proceeding on to destinations like Alexandria, Luxor, Khartoum, Port Said, Gaza, Jerusalem, and all other major cities in the union.