Population

The numbers throughout this section should be understood as rough estimates to be used as a guide describing growth in Cairo. Many sources note that at times great disparities exist between figures of the same time period, and therefore exact knowledge of Cairo's population over time is not available. The population of Cairo has fluctuated greatly since its first inhabitants settled along the Nile over 7000 years ago. It is believed that the city reached a population of 500,000 and then declined four separate times in its history. The last time Cairo’s population reached 500,000 was near the end of the 19th Century. The population has continued to grow every year since and a decline is not likely. From an under-populated city of 250,000 in 1800 Cairo is now overpopulated and is estimated to exceed 16 million inhabitants by the year 2000. Cairo's first official census was taken in 1882, in the following15 years the population of Cairo grew from 400,000 to just under 600,000. In 1897 the 600,000 people living in Cairo made up less than 8% of Egypt’s total population, by 1947, 11% lived in Cairo, and by 1960 more than 13% of Egyptians lived in Cairo. The increase was primarily a result of the rural to urban migration patterns of Egyptian farmers. New irrigation and agricultural technologies increased the farming production and expanded the cultivable areas, but also reduced the size of the labor force needed, pushing land laborers into the city to find work. The job opportunities, the higher wages, the better health facilities, and the education opportunities in the city pulled many of the rural migrants to Cairo in the late 1800s

Swanson, John

Two-thirds of the growth from 1897 to 1907 was due to the influx of foreigners, but after the bank failures in 1907 the migration of foreigners nearly stopped and the largest contribution to Cairo’s growth was the migration of rural peoples into the city and the excess of births over deaths. Each of these contributed to approximately half of the city’s growth. By 1960 the number of rural migrants had decreased to only 22% of the total population growth. In 1982, 10% of the population growth was due to migration.  This percentage decreased due to the extended life expectancy, job opportunities opening in the oil rich Arab States, and an increased birth rate to 3.5 children per family. New sanitation laws and vaccinations, as well as the construction of hospitals and a sewer system in 1915, helped to increase the life expectancy rate.

The government began extensive family planning efforts about 1980 and throughout the 1980s they successfully reached a large portion of the population. The growth rate decreased from around 3% per year in 1980, to approximately 2% per year in 1990. This was a great accomplishment considering Cairo’s large population started at 9 million and rose to 14 million by 1990.

The densities in Cairo are very different from one area to the next. In 1960 "Cairo contained almost 3.5 million persons living in an area where 2 million had lived in 1947" (Abu-Lughod, 1971, 177). The average density for Cairo proper in 1966 was 19,594 people per square kilometer. By 1970 it had jumped to 23,204. In the mid-1970s the old quarters, with no more than 4 or 5 story buildings, had densities reaching 136,000 people per square kilometer. New York City in 1965 had 25,000 people per square kilometer, with its high-rise apartment buildings. The average density today has climbed past 27,000.

Cairo's city planners in 1956 estimated the city's population would reach 4.2 million by the year 2000, at worst they considered an outrageous figure of 10 million by 2000. Their 4.2 million estimate was accomplished by 1960 and the estimated figure for 2000 is somewhere past 16 million. In 1965 the Greater Cairo Planning Commission was created to address the enormous problems surfacing with the increase in population and to plan new developments to divert the population from entering Cairo. In the first plan they approved and began to implement was built to house 1,000 people on every 2 fedans of land. When the population growth continued to worsen the city reached a point where every 1,000 people were living on one-fourth of one fedan.