General Information

Language: Arabic is the official language. English and French are also used in certain situations including trade exchanges

Mobile Phone: there are three mobile phone service providers: Vodafone Egypt, Telecom Egypt and Orange Egypt.

Politics: Egypt is a republic. Its democratic system is based on citizenship, and the supremacy of all legislative, executive and judiciary institutions, in addition to the press, political parties, local governments and civil society organizations.

Religion: Islam is the official religion of the state. Most non-Muslims in Egypt are Christians, nearly all of whom are Copts (adherents of the Coptic Orthodox church or other Coptic churches).

Administrative units: Egypt is subdivided into 28 administrative units (provinces), each with an independent judiciary jurisdiction and comprises a number of cities, towns and villages.

Geography: With 1,002,450 sq.k m, Egypt is the 29^th largest country in the world in land area. It is located on the northeast corner of the continent of Africa with water boundaries along the Mediterranean and at the edges of Africa, Europe, and Asia. Its territories span east and eastward to the Red Sea, Palestine and Israel, westward to Libya, and southward to the Sudan.

Religious institutions: The following are the oldest and most important religious institutions in Egypt:
- Al Azhar was built by the Fatimis to spread the Shia sect in North Africa before Salah Uddin Al Ayyoobi turned it into a Sunni university to become one of the most prominent pillars of Sunni Islam in the world.
- Dar Al Iftaa was established in 1895 and is chaired by the grand mufti.
- The Coptic Orthodox Church is one of the oldest and first five Christian churches in the world, and the residence and seat of the Coptic Orthodox Pope of Alexandria.
- The Roman Orthodox Church is chaired by the Patriarch Theodoros II, the Pope of the Roman Orthodox in the Arab Republic of Egypt and all of Africa, based in Alexandria.

Population: The total population of Egypt is about 90 million according to the census of 2015, mostly concentrated along the banks of River Nile and in major towns and cities such as Cairo, Luxor, Aswan and Port Said. There are less populated areas including the oases of the western sahara and major population concentrations in Sinai peninsula.

Culture: Egypt has a distinguished heritage that was formed over thousands of years by successive civilizations including Pharaonic, Greek, Roman, Coptic and Islamic, resembling building blocks firmly fixed together to establish a firm edifice of various schools of thought, literature and art.

Investment in Egypt: The website of the General Authority for Investment and Free Zones http://www.investment.gov.eg/english/Pages/default.aspx of the Ministry of Investment provides a comprehensive database including a map for investment opportunities and major target economic sectors, in addition to organizing regulations and systems of investment in Egypt.

Cairo - Arab Republic of Egypt