Egypt ( ; , transl: Miṣr or transl: Máṣr) is a country in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge to Western Asia. Covering an area of about , Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west.

Egypt is one of the most populous countries in Africa and the Middle East. The great majority of its estimated 75.4 millionCentral Agency for Population Mobilisation and Statistics - Population Clock (July 2008) live near the banks of the Nile River, in an area of about , where the only arable agricultural land is found. The large areas of the Sahara Desert are sparsely inhabited. About half of Egypt's residents live in urban areas, with the majority spread across the densely-populated centres of greater Cairo, Alexandria and other major cities in the Nile Delta.

Egypt is famous for its ancient civilization and some of the world's most famous monuments, including the Giza pyramid complex and its Great Sphinx. The southern city of Luxor contains numerous ancient artifacts, such as the Karnak Temple and the Valley of the Kings. Egypt is widely regarded as an important political and cultural nation of the Middle East.

Etymology

One of the ancient Egyptian names of the country, Kemet (transl: kṃt), (from kem "black"), is derived from the fertile black soils deposited by the Nile floods, distinct from the deshret, or "red land" (transl: dšṛt), of the desert. The name is realized as lang: kīmi and lang: kīmə in the Coptic stage of the Egyptian language, and appeared in early Greek as (lang: Khēmía). Another name was lang: t3-mry "land of the riverbank". The names of Upper and Lower Egypt were Ta-Sheme'aw (transl: t3-šmˁw) "sedgeland" and Ta-Mehew (transl: t3 mḥw) "northland", respectively.

transl: Miṣr, the Arabic and modern official name of Egypt (Egyptian Arabic: transl: Maṣr), is of Semitic origin, directly cognate with other Semitic words for Egypt such as the Hebrew (transl: Mitzráyim), literally meaning "the two straits" (a reference to the dynastic separation of upper and lower Egypt).Biblical Hebrew E-Magazine. January, 2005 The word originally connoted "metropolis" or "civilization" and also means "country", or "frontier-land".