The 5 Themes of Geography Applied to Egypt
Environmental Geography: Egypt has many environmental and
geographical benefits. It is easily to see how society have existed, and
thrived, in Egypt for thousands of years. The most significant of these
features is the Nile River. The Nile provides water and life to an area that
was ultimately be a barren desert without it. The Nile empties out into the Mediterranean
Sea at the Nile Delta. Due to the Nile’s odd characteristic of flowing North,
Egypt has the advantageous situation of being the gateway for trade into Europe
from Africa. The Nile Delta provides Egypt with agricultural lands, which
amounts to a significant portion of their economy. Almost all of Egypt’s
population lives in cities that touch the Nile. Most of the rest of the country
is inhospitable desert. Nile floods and desert-causing dust storms are the two
primary threats from Mother Nature.
Population and
Settlement: Egypt
has a population of 83,000,000 people. That is a little less than one third of
the population of the U.S. Water accessibility is the most important factor in the
settlement of the country’s population, with virtually every significant
population center bordering the Nile. This results in most of the population
being confined to a small area, leading to significant population density. The
capitol city Cairo has a greater population density than every U.S. west of New
York.
Cultural Coherence: Cultural unity is interestingly
complex in Egypt due to its incredibly long history as a society. Over time,
Egypt has been controlled by several different nations and several very
different cultures. Alexander conquered Egypt and made an Egyptian city the
center of Greek intellectual life. Later, the Romans controlled Egypt, and used
it as a base to trade with other African cultures such as the Askum. It was
later taken by Arab peoples, and Islam became the dominant cultural theme. The
Ottoman Empire and Napoleon’s France would both control Egypt for some time and
the British held authority from the late 1800s to the early 1950s. As a result,
Egypt has been a melting pot of culture for thousands of years, with values
both western and eastern, ancient and modern.
Since Egypt’s
independent in 1952, it has wrestled with its identity almost non-stop. The two
main themes in the conflict are Secularism versus Religious interpretation of
government. For many decades, Egypt has been the secular minority of
middle-eastern (or Arab) politics, but has also created the radical Jihadist movement
and inspired many of the radical Islamic terrorist organizations. As seen by
the 2011 Revolution and the 2013 Coup, Egypt still has not yet established a
symbiotic relationship between the two dominant political and cultural themes.
Geography of Economics:
Egypt is positioned
in a very advantageous position on the top of Africa. With the north-flowing
Nile, Egypt has controlled the most efficient way to move goods from East,
Central and South Africa to the Mediterranean. The country also borders the
Arabian Peninsula and the Red Sea, making it and attractive trading destination
for the early Arab world to access Africa. Eventually, Egypt was the gate way
for Islam to enter northern Africa, where the culture utilized trade to stretch
all the way to Morocco on the other side of the continent. Egypt owns the Suez
Canal, which giving the Mediterranean access to the Red Sea (instead of
having to sail all the way around Africa), is one of the most economically important
canals in the world.
