Cairo is the African capital nicknamed the City of a Thousand Minarets. The nickname reflects the city’s extraordinary concentration of mosques and Islamic architectural landmarks.
Cairo stands on the Nile in northern Egypt and forms the core of one of Africa’s largest metropolitan areas. The modern city was founded in 969 AD by the Fatimid general Jawhar al-Saqili, northeast of the older settlement of Fustat. Its Arabic name, al-Qāhira, means “the victorious” or “the conqueror.”
The nickname is descriptive rather than an exact architectural census. Historic Cairo contains hundreds of mosques, madrasas, tombs, caravanserais, and other monuments. Among its best-known religious buildings are the Al-Azhar Mosque, the Mosque of Ibn Tulun, and the Mosque-Madrasa of Sultan Hasan.
Cairo is sometimes confused with Alexandria, Egypt’s major Mediterranean port, or with Rabat, Morocco’s capital. The “thousand minarets” expression points specifically to Cairo’s long role as a center of Islamic scholarship, government, and monumental building.