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Officially speaking, Cairo was founded in AD 969. However, to claim that Cairo is merely a thousand years old is in fact historically inaccurate. The city's long journey across history started more than four millenia ago. Throughout the ages, she managed to survive by fulfilling her rulers wishes, be they Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, or Turks. To please them, she assumed various names: Memphis, Heliopolis, Babylon-in-Egypt, Al-Fustat, Al-Qataei, Al-Askar, and most recently, Al-Qahira.

In order to appreciate Cairo's deep-rooted history, one has to look back at history itself. When Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, Cairo was older to him than he is to us. In the fifth century BC, the great historian Herodotus visited the then 2000 year-old Pyramids as a tourist. At the time, the Ancient Egyptian civilization had generated more than thirty dynasties, each surviving, on average, longer than the Soviet Union. Later, Cairo witnessed the rise and fall of the Greek, Persian, Roman, Arab, Ottoman, French, and British Empires. She played major roles in the history of three major religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It was here that the Virgin Mary and the Child Jesus rested after their long journey from Palestine, and that the first Islamic mosque in Africa was built by Amr Ibn Al-Aas. Cairo is at least twice as old as Paris, 7 times as old as Berlin, and 15 times as old as New York City.

Today, Greater Cairo encompasses various historic towns and modern districts into one of the largest metropoles in the world. A journey through Cairo is a virtual time travel: from the Pyramids, Saladin's Citadel, the Virgin Mary's Tree, the Sphinx, and Ancient Heliopolis, to Al-Azhar, the Mosque of Amr, Saqqara, the Hanging Church, and the Cairo Tower. With an estimated population of more than 15 million, she is the largest city in Africa and the Middle East. She is the capital of Egypt, and indeed her history is carefully intertwinted with that of the country. Today, her official name is Al-Qahira (Cairo), but to Egyptians, she is simply Masr : Egypt.