!Egypt Egypt is a country, Region - Northern Africa, Capital - Cairo, Population in 2003 - 71,931,000, Population density - 72 per sq km, Surface area - 1,001,449 sq km and Currency - pound. This country is occupying the NE. corner of Africa, lies along the W. shore of the Red Sea, has a northern coast-line on the Mediterranean, and stretches S. as far as Wady Halfa; its chief natural features are uninhabitable desert on the E. and W., and the populous and fertile valley of the Nile. Cereals, sugar, cotton, and tobacco are important products. Mohammedan Arabs constitute the bulk of the people, but there is also a remnant of the ancient Coptic race. The country was nominally a dependency of Turkey under a native government, but was in reality controlled by the British, who exercised a veto on its financial policy, and who, since 1882, have occupied the country with soldiers. British military presence in Egypt lasted until 1954. On 18 June 1953, the Egyptian Republic was declared. The noble monuments and relics of her ancient civilisation, chief amongst which are the Pyramids, as well as the philosophies and religions she inherited, together with the arts she practised, and her close connection with Jewish history, give her a peculiar claim on the interested regard of mankind. Nothing, perhaps, has excited more wonder in connection with Egypt than the advanced state of her civilisation when she first comes to play a part in the history of the world. There is evidence that 4000 years before the Christian era the arts of building, pottery, sculpture, literature, even music and painting, were highly developed, her social institutions well organised, and that considerable advance had been made in astronomy, chemistry, medicine, and anatomy. Already the Egyptians had divided the year into 365 days and 12 months, and had invented an elaborate system of weights and measures, based on the decimal notation.