The great mass of Egypt is located in Africa; the Sinai peninsula is the only portion situated in Asia and is separated from the rest of the country by the Suez Canal. Egypt North of Cairo is often called Lower Egypt and South of Cairo, Upper Egypt. The principal physiographic feature of the country is the Nile River, which flows from south to north through East Egypt for c.900 mi (1,450 km). In the far south is Lake Nasser, a vast artificial lake impounded by the Aswan High Dam (built 1960–70), and in the north, below Cairo, is the great Nile delta (c.8,500 sq mi/22,000 sq km). Bordering the Nile between Aswan and Cairo are narrow strips (on the average 5 mi/8 km wide) of cultivated land; there are broad regions of tilled land in the delta

West of the Nile is the extremely arid Libyan (or Western) Desert, a generally low-lying region (maximum alt. c.1,000 ft/300 m), largely covered with sand dunes or barren rocky plains. The desert contains a few oases, notably Siwah, Farafra, and Kharga. In Southwest Egypt the desert rises to the Jilf al-Kabir plateau. East of the Nile is the Arabian (or Eastern) Desert, a dissected highland area (rising to c.7,150 ft/2,180 m) that is mostly barren and virtually uninhabited except for a few settlements along the Red Sea coast.

The Sinai peninsula is a plateau broken by deep valleys; Mount Catherine, or Jabal Katrinah (8,652 ft/2,637 m), Egypt's loftiest point, and Mount Sinai, or Jabal Musa (7,497 ft/2,285 m), are located in the south. Northern Sinai, largely a sandy desert, contains most of the peninsula's small population, which lives mainly in towns built around wells.

An Overview

Location :
Northern Africa, bordering the Mediterranean Sea, between Libya and the Gaza Strip, and the Red Sea north of Sudan, and includes the Asian Sinai Peninsula

Geographic coordinates :
27 00 N, 30 00 E

Map references :
Africa

Area :
total: 1,001,450 sq km
land: 995,450 sq km
water: 6,000 sq km

Area - comparative :
slightly more than three times the size of New Mexico

Land boundaries :
total: 2,665 km
border countries: Gaza Strip 11 km, Israel 266 km, Libya 1,115 km, Sudan 1,273 km