Egypt is officially known as the Arab Republic of Egypt and is located in north-eastern Africa and southwestern Asia. Cairo, the capital and largest city, is the most modern in the Middle East and Africa.
It is bounded on the north by the Mediterranean Sea, on the east by Israel and the Red Sea, on the south by Sudan, and on the west by Libya. The country has a maximum length from north to south of about 1086 km (about 675 m) and a maximum width, near the southern border, of about 1255 km (about 780 m). It has a total area of about 1,001,450 sq km (about 386,662 sq m). Less than one-tenth of the land area of Egypt is settled or under cultivation, this consists of the valley and delta of the Nile, a number of desert oases, and land along the Suez Canal.
More than 90 percent of the country consists of desert areas: In the west, the Libyan Desert, a part of the Sahara Desert which is also known as the Western Desert. The Libyan Desert includes a vast sandy expanse called the Great Sand Sea. Located here are several depressions with elevations below sea level, including the Qattara Depression, which has an area of about 18,000 sq km (about 7000 sq m) and reaches a depth of 133 m (436 ft) below sea level, the lowest point in Africa. Also found here are the oases of Siwa, Kharga, Baharia and Dakhla.
In the east the Arabian Desert, also called the Eastern Desert (which borders the Red Sea and the Gulf of Suez). Much of the Arabian Desert occupies a plateau that rises gradually east from the Nile Valley to elevations of about 600 m (about 2000 ft) in the east and is broken along the Red Sea coast by jagged peaks as high as about 2100 m (about 7000 ft) above sea level.
In the extreme south, along the border with Sudan, is the Nubian Desert, an extensive region of dunes and sandy plains.