Giza

Giza is a city on the west bank of the Nile in Egypt, facing Cairo across the river, and the capital of Giza Governorate. The Great Pyramid of Khufu on the plateau at its edge is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still standing.

The kings of the 4th Dynasty built the pyramids of Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure on the desert plateau in the 26th century BC, together with the Great Sphinx and temples for their cults. The plateau formed part of the burial grounds of Memphis, the old capital of Egypt to the south. The town itself grew from farming villages along the river, and in the 19th century the khedives built palaces and gardens there. Cairo University moved to its campus in Giza in the early 20th century. The pyramid fields from Giza to Dahshur were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.

Nazlet el-Samman, the village at the foot of the plateau, lives from horse and camel rides and from shops of papyrus, perfume and alabaster sold to visitors at the pyramids. The irrigated fields of the governorate along the river grow cotton, wheat, clover and vegetables for the markets of Cairo.

The Great Sphinx, carved from the limestone of the plateau with the body of a lion and the head of a king, faces east toward the river. The Grand Egyptian Museum opened beside the plateau in the 2020s and shows the treasures of the tomb of Tutankhamun together in one place. The solar boat of Khufu, a cedar ship found buried beside his pyramid in the 1950s, was moved there and rebuilt plank by plank. Cairo University, with its domed great hall on the main campus, has taught generations of Egyptian writers, scientists and leaders, among them the Nobel prize winner Naguib Mahfouz.