ABSTRACT
Geographically Egypt consists of a broad area of desert which occupies over 95 per cent of the country and a long valley formed by the Nile river. In the north the valley broadens into the Delta of Lower Egypt. All but 1 per cent of the population live in the Nile valley. In 1920 nearly 90 per cent of the population of 13 million was rural, living in villages; there was also a small nomadic bedouin population principally in the western desert although many of the bedouin were settled or semi-settled. One quarter of the population lived in towns, notably in Cairo which had a population of 900,000 and Alexandria (500,000). In the towns there was also a resident foreign European population of about 200,000, half of whom were of Greek origin and the remainder mainly Italian, British and French. Other significant foreign minorities were the Syrians and the Armenians. Over 90 per cent of the population was Muslim, nearly all Sunni. Egypt also possessed the largest indigenous Christian group in the Near East in the form of the Coptic community, resident mainly in the towns and in Upper Egypt, and a small Jewish community.
