Cairo

People

More than one-quarter of all Egyptians live in Cairo. The population of the city proper stood at 9,690,000 in 1998 while the population of the greater metropolitan area has been variously estimated between 12 and 18 million. The city's population is more homogenous today than during the colonial period when large numbers of Europeans lived in Cairo. Today about 95 percent of the city's residents were born in Egypt, and 90 percent are Muslims. Cairo's population also includes significant numbers of people from other African countries, especially Sudan (Sudanese are thought to number about 400,000). About 20,000 African Muslims from other countries are students at Al-Azhar University. Even more are refugees who fled their home-lands.