The Population of Egypt
The Egyptian Population
The
majority of the population of modern Egypt are descendants of peoples from ancient
Egyptian times and society, and proportionally very few Egyptians emigrate. True
Egyptians constitute the primary ethnic group at well over 75 million, 98% of
the total population.
The population of Egypt have historically only spoken languages from Africa
and Asia throughout their history from Old Egyptian to modern Masri Egyptian
Arabic. Around 90% of the population of Egypt is Muslim with the remaining 10%
taken up with Christian, Coptic Orthodox 9% and 1% other Christian.
Egypt is by far the most populous country in the Middle East and the second-most
on the African continent. Nearly all of the country's nearly 80 million people
live in only three areas of the country: Cairo and Alexandria and The Nile valley;
throughout the Nile delta, which fans out north of Cairo; and along the Suez
Canal. These places are among the world's most heavily populated with an average
of near 4,000 souls per square mile or over 1,540 per sq km.as compared with
just 181 souls per sq mi for Egypt as a whole.
There are small communities spread throughout the desert regions of Egypt,
mainly clustered around permanent oases along historic trade routes. The Egyptian
government has tried, without great success, to encourage local migration to
newly irrigated land that has been reclaimed from the Egyptian deserts. The proportion
of the population living in rural areas has continued to decrease, like in many
other countries around the world, as people move to the cities in search of a
better lifestyle, employment and a higher standard of living.
Ethnic minorities in Egypt include the Bedouin Arab tribes of the Sinai Peninsula
and the eastern Egyptian desert area. There is the Berber-speaking community
of the Siwa Oasis region and the Nubian people living alongside the River Nile
in the southernmost part of Upper Egypt.
There are also minorities: notably of Beja and Dom tribes people and Egypt
is also host to many different communities that settled during the colonial periods,
these include: Armenians, British, Greeks, Italians, Syrians and surprisingly,
some Jews. The country hosts nearly 100,000 refugees and asylum seekers, mostly
from Palestine and the Sudan.
