Cairo is “Al Qaheera”, which means the great and victorious city. Cairo has been the capital of Egypt since 972 A.D., when the Fatimid Caliph built it, when they came to Egypt from Tunisia.
Cairo is about 280 km 40 km x 70 km, but following the new districts & cities built around it, it became about 90 km wide x 70 km long.
Cairo is famous for the downtown, which was built in 1860 when Ismail Pasha, the ruler of Egypt and was one of the family of Mohamed Ali, started to build the royal places near the now-famous Tahrir Square.
However, in 2011, Tahrir Square was the place in which happened the revolution against the former president Mubarak. Above all when in 2013, there was the revolution against the Muslim Brotherhood president.
Tahrir Square, “Liberation Square,” had this name from the 1950s, when the English Army, who occupied Egypt since 1882, left Cairo in 1952 and stayed near the Suez Canal till 1956, when they left Egypt.