Egyptians (Arabic: lang: مِصريّون lang: miṣriyūn; Masri: lang: مَصريين lang: maṣreyyīn; Coptic: Coptic: ⲛⲓⲣⲉⲙ'ⲛⲭⲏⲙⲓ lang: ni.remenkīmi) is the name of the North African ethnic group native to Egypt, and also of the nationality of the citizens of the Arab Republic of Egypt.

Egyptian identity is closely tied to the Geography of Egypt, dominated by the lower Nile Valley, the small strip of cultivable land stretching from the First Cataract to the Mediterranean Sea and enclosed by desert both to the east and to the west. This unique geography has been the basis of the development of Egyptian society since antiquity.

The Egyptians speak Masri, the local variety of Arabic. Egyptians are predominantly adherents of Sunni Islam with a Shia minority and a significant proportion who follow native Sufi orders.Hoffman, Valerie J. Sufism, Mystics, and Saints in Modern Egypt. University of South Carolina Press, 1995. 1 A sizable minority of Egyptians belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church, whose liturgical language, Coptic, is the last stage of the indigenous Egyptian language. The national identity of Egyptians as it developed in the 19th to 20th centuries consists of overlapping or conflicting ideologies, a Muslim identity prone to Arab nationalism on one hand, versus a secular nationalism that focuses primarily on Ancient EgyptFact: date=October 2008.

Names

• Egyptians, from Greek lang: Αἰγύπτιοι, lang: Aiguptioi, from lang: Αἰγύπτος, lang: Aiguptos "Egypt". The Greek name is derived from Late Egyptian Hikuptah "Memphis", a corruption of the earlier Egyptian name Hat-ka-Ptah (transl: ḥwt-k3-ptḥ), meaning "home of the ka (soul) of Ptah", the name of a temple to the god Ptah at Memphis. Strabo provided a folk etymology according to which lang: Αίγυπτος had evolved as a compound from transl: Aἰγαίου ὑπτίως lang: Aegaeon uptiōs, meaning "below the Aegean". In English, the noun "Egyptians" appears in the 14th century, in Wycliff's Bible, as Egipcions.

• Copts ( قبط) – Under Muslim rule, the Egyptians came to be known as Copts, a derivative of the Greek word , Aiguptios (Egyptian), from , Aiguptos (Egypt). The Greek name in turn may be derived from the Egyptian , literally "Estate (or 'House') of Ptah", the name of the temple complex of the god Ptah at Memphis. After the majority of Egyptians converted from Christianity to Islam due to the Islamic takeover, the term became exclusively associated with Egyptian Christianity and Egyptians who remained Christian, though references to native Muslims as Copts are attested until the Mamluk period.