Today we’re in Egypt, where we’re not going to talk about the Pyramids, the Nile or the Arab spring. There are many better places on the internet to read about these topics. If you do visit though, please pick me up a pyramid keychain.

The world’s oldest nation deserves something better than a few hastily Googled facts. Today we are going to cover a few lesser-known Egyptian topics. We’re going to find out why Egypt’s capital city has no name, revisit the time it snowed in Egypt, and finally track down Egypt’s not so well known second river.

Egypt’s capital with no name

This is patently stupid. Everyone know’s Egypt’s capital is called Cairo. Right? Well kind of. Cairo is one of Africa’s fastest-growing cities, recently reaching a population of 20 million. This growth has left its infrastructure overwhelmed. Cairo is now often recognised as one of the world’s most polluted cities with its crippling congregation swallowing up to 4% of Egypt’s GDP.

So to solve this problem, the Egyptian government decided back in 2015 to start from scratch and construct a brand new capital just outside of the existing city of Cairo.

So far the as-yet-unnamed new capital has been given the catchy title of the “New Administrative Capital”. Egypt’s new Capital is set to cost at least 58 billion USD and will house up around 7 million people in its 21 districts. What will it be called though? Apparently, there will be a competition to name the city, but if there are no suitable entries and as New Cairo is already taken, how about New New Cairo?  

That time it snowed in Egypt

Back in 2013, a cold snap swept over the Middle East. Bringing cold winds and freezing temperatures to Egypt. Then the most improbable weather phenomena occurred: Egypt received its first covering of snow for 112 years.

At the time the internet was filled with photos of the Pyramids and Sphinx covered in snow. I can actually remember seeing photos of this at the time. The sight of these iconic structures covered in snow is really quite arresting. It was a winter miracle.

Except it wasn’t. Sadly, although the story of snow in Egypt is true, all of these images were fake. It seems the most perfect story wasn’t quite perfect enough, so a little Photoshop was required. Once unleashed these doctored photos spread across the internet like wildfire. In fact AFP Fact Check even has an in-depth article looking at all of the images and how they were likely created.

Next time it snows in Egypt, make sure to have your camera at the ready.

Egypt’s elusive second river

Okay, so I admit it, we may have to talk about the Nile. That’s because conventional wisdom states that Egypt only has one river. The Nile. 

I find this pretty staggering when considering that Egypt is larger than Turkey, Chile, and France. It’s a truly vast country, how can it only have one river?

But this can’t be the answer, can it? I set out on a quest to find Egypt’s second river and I think I’ve found it. Or to be more precise scientists using space-borne radars discovered it back in 2013.

When studying the Sinai peninsular, scientists found evidence of an ancient system of rivers and tributaries. The river is called “Wadi El-Arish” and although it’s estimated that the river hasn’t flowed for at least 4500, in my book it still counts as a river. Of sorts.

Ah, Wadi El-Arish, still waters run deep.