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Roots Earth in Cairo: audio stories about 52 places

Roots Earth has audio stories about 52 places in Cairo, Egypt, in Africa. The Cairo stories are in all seven Roots Earth languages: English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian. The app needs no account: open Cairo, pick a place on the city's map of places and play. Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection. The stories are written by local people.

The 52 places are listed below in the order the app shows them, and again further down with their coordinates. The lists were taken from the Roots Earth catalogue on 15 September 2026.

Published 16 September 2026. Markdown: cairo.md

The 52 places in Cairo with audio stories

In the order the app shows them.

  1. Great Pyramid of Giza
  2. Great Sphinx of Giza
  3. Egyptian Museum
  4. Cairo Citadel
  5. Mosque of Muhammad Ali
  6. Khan el-Khalili
  7. Al-Azhar Mosque
  8. Tahrir Square
  9. Mosque of Ibn Tulun
  10. Mosque-Madrasa of Sultan Hassan
  11. Al-Rifa'i Mosque
  12. Hanging Church
  13. Coptic Cairo
  14. Ben Ezra Synagogue
  15. Cairo Tower
  16. Bab Zuweila
  17. Al-Hakim Mosque
  18. Al-Mu'izz Street
  19. Qalawun Complex
  20. Museum of Islamic Art
  21. Abdeen Palace
  22. Manial Palace
  23. Baron Empain Palace
  24. Gayer-Anderson Museum
  25. Coptic Museum
  26. Al-Azhar Park
  27. Cairo Opera House
  28. Qasr al-Nil Bridge
  29. Bayt al-Suhaymi
  30. Mosque of Amr ibn al-As
  31. Nilometer
  32. Mosque of Sultan al-Mu'ayyad
  33. Wikala of al-Ghuri
  34. Bab al-Futuh
  35. Bab al-Nasr
  36. El-Fishawy Café
  37. Café Riche
  38. Talaat Harb Street
  39. Downtown Cairo
  40. Zamalek
  41. Garden City
  42. Maadi
  43. Heliopolis
  44. City of the Dead
  45. Mausoleum of Imam al-Shafi'i
  46. Funerary Complex of Sultan Barquq
  47. Boulaq
  48. Mosque of al-Sayyida Nafisa
  49. Roda Island
  50. El Sawy Culture Wheel
  51. Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Museum
  52. Imbaba

Is there an audio guide for Great Pyramid of Giza?

Yes. Great Pyramid of Giza has its audio stories in the Roots Earth app: a short introduction and a deeper story, in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian.

It is place 1 of the 52 Cairo places in the app, at 29.97917, 31.13417. Every one of the other 51 places in the list above has the same two stories.

Roots Earth is not a guided tour: you choose the place on the city's map of places and play its story yourself.

How to use Roots Earth in Cairo

Open Roots Earth and choose Cairo. The city has its own map of places with all 52 of them on it. Tap the place you are standing in front of, or any other, and play its short introduction or its deeper story. You decide what to listen to and in which order.

You can listen in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian, and there is no account. Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection.

In full

All 52 places in Cairo, in the app's order, with their coordinates.

All 52 places in Cairo, with coordinates

Every place below has a short introduction and a deeper story in the Roots Earth app, in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian. The names, the coordinates (latitude, longitude) and the one line descriptions are the app's own catalogue values of 15 September 2026; a place without a line here has none that this page can print.

1. Great Pyramid of Giza

Coordinates
29.97917, 31.13417
In one line
Raised around 2600 BCE as the tomb of pharaoh Khufu, this colossus of roughly 2. 3 million limestone blocks stood as the tallest structure on Earth for nearly four thousand years. It is the last surviving Wonder of the ancient world.

2. Great Sphinx of Giza

Coordinates
29.97526, 31.13758
In one line
Carved from a single ridge of limestone around 2500 BCE, this lion-bodied guardian with a human face stretches about 73 meters long. Likely shaped in Khafre's reign, it is the largest monolithic statue surviving from the ancient world.

3. Egyptian Museum

Coordinates
30.04778, 31.23333
In one line
Opened in 1902 on Tahrir Square, this neoclassical landmark designed by Marcel Dourgnon holds the world's largest collection of Egyptian antiquities, more than 170,000 items, long including Tutankhamun's golden mask and the royal mummies.

4. Cairo Citadel

Coordinates
30.02944, 31.26139
In one line
Begun by Saladin between 1176 and 1183 on the Mokattam hills, this medieval fortress guarded Cairo against the Crusaders and served as Egypt's seat of power for roughly 700 years. Its ramparts command sweeping views toward the pyramids.

5. Mosque of Muhammad Ali

Coordinates
30.02877, 31.26022
In one line
Commissioned by Muhammad Ali Pasha and built from 1830 within the Citadel, this Ottoman-style mosque is clad in alabaster and crowned by a 52-meter central dome. Its courtyard holds a clock gifted by France in exchange for an Egyptian obelisk.

6. Khan el-Khalili

Coordinates
30.0475, 31.26222
In one line
Founded in 1382 by the emir Jaharkas al-Khalili during the Mamluk era, this labyrinthine bazaar in Islamic Cairo brims with gold, copper, spices and lanterns. The historic El Fishawy café has poured coffee here since 1773.

7. Al-Azhar Mosque

Coordinates
30.04571, 31.26268
In one line
Founded by the Fatimids between 970 and 972, this is among the oldest mosques in Cairo and home to one of the world's oldest continuously running universities. Five minarets from successive dynasties rise above its marble courtyard.

8. Tahrir Square

Coordinates
30.04444, 31.23583
In one line
Cairo's vast central plaza, constructed in 1865 and officially renamed Liberation Square after the 1952 Revolution. Ringed by the Egyptian Museum and government towers, it became the global stage of the 2011 uprising.

9. Mosque of Ibn Tulun

Coordinates
30.02889, 31.24944
In one line
Cairo's oldest mosque surviving in its original form, built between 876 and 879 by governor Ahmad ibn Tulun. Its vast brick courtyard and rare spiral minaret echo the Abbasid style of Samarra in Iraq.

10. Mosque-Madrasa of Sultan Hassan

Coordinates
30.0319, 31.2567
In one line
The grandest of Cairo's Mamluk monuments, built between 1356 and 1363 for Sultan Hasan. A colossal teaching mosque for the four Sunni schools, famed for its towering portal, soaring courtyard, and marble mihrab.

11. Al-Rifa'i Mosque

Coordinates
30.03157, 31.25667
In one line
A grand Mamluk-revival mosque built between 1869 and 1912, facing the medieval Sultan Hassan complex. It serves as a royal mausoleum, holding Egypt's last kings and the final Shah of Iran.

12. Hanging Church

Coordinates
30.0054, 31.2301
In one line
One of Egypt's oldest churches, suspended over a gatehouse of the Roman Babylon fortress. Dedicated to the Virgin Mary, it long served as the seat of the Coptic pope and treasures a marble pulpit and ancient icons.

13. Coptic Cairo

Coordinates
30.00628, 31.23178
In one line
The ancient Christian quarter within the Roman fortress of Babylon, gathering Egypt's oldest churches, the Ben Ezra Synagogue, and the Coptic Museum. Narrow lanes wind among Roman bastions steeped in early Christian history.

14. Ben Ezra Synagogue

Coordinates
30.00581, 31.23097
In one line
A medieval synagogue in Coptic Cairo, standing on an ancient site rich in legend. It became world-famous as the home of the Cairo Geniza, a vast trove of medieval Jewish documents rediscovered in the 1890s.

15. Cairo Tower

Coordinates
30.04583, 31.22444
In one line
Rising 187 meters above Gezira Island, Cairo Tower is a latticework concrete spire built between 1956 and 1961.

16. Bab Zuweila

Coordinates
30.04283, 31.2578
In one line
Bab Zuweila is the great southern gate of Fatimid Cairo, rebuilt in stone in 1092 and crowned with twin Mamluk minarets in the early 1400s.

17. Al-Hakim Mosque

Coordinates
30.05444, 31.26389
In one line
Begun in 990 and completed in 1013, Al-Hakim Mosque is one of Cairo's great Fatimid monuments, named for a famously enigmatic caliph. Its fortress-like walls, two stone-encased minarets, and vast marble courtyard reward unhurried exploration.

18. Al-Mu'izz Street

Coordinates
30.04667, 31.26
In one line
Al-Mu'izz Street is the medieval spine of Islamic Cairo, laid out from 970 as the Fatimid capital's main artery. Lined with mosques, madrasas, fountains, and merchant houses, this restored open-air museum gathers a thousand years of architecture along one walk.

19. Qalawun Complex

Coordinates
30.04953, 31.26097
In one line
Built in barely 13 months around 1284 by Sultan Qalawun, this Mamluk landmark on al-Muizz Street combines a madrasa, a domed mausoleum, and a famous hospital. Its 67-meter facade and lavish marble interiors mark a turning point in Cairo's architecture.

20. Museum of Islamic Art

Coordinates
30.04472, 31.25278
In one line
Housed in a neo-Mamluk building completed in 1902, Cairo's Museum of Islamic Art holds over 100,000 objects spanning the 7th to 19th centuries. Its 25 halls display rare manuscripts, metalwork, glass, ceramics, and gilded mosque lamps from across the Islamic world.

21. Abdeen Palace

Coordinates
30.04167, 31.24833
In one line
Built between 1863 and 1874 by Khedive Ismail, Abdeen Palace is a 500-room neoclassical seat of Egyptian government. Once the royal residence and now a presidential palace, its museums display silver, arms, royal gifts, and historic clocks.

22. Manial Palace

Coordinates
30.027, 31.23
In one line
On Rhoda Island, Manial Palace gathers Ottoman, Andalusian, Persian and Rococo styles across gardens and pavilions built between 1900 and 1929 for Prince Mohammed Ali Tewfik, cousin of King Farouk, now a richly furnished royal museum.

23. Baron Empain Palace

Coordinates
30.08667, 31.33028
In one line
In Heliopolis stands the Baron Empain Palace, a concrete villa shaped like a Hindu temple. Built between 1906 and 1911 for Belgian industrialist Édouard Empain and designed by French architect Alexandre Marcel, it now reopens as a cultural center.

24. Gayer-Anderson Museum

Coordinates
30.0284, 31.2507
In one line
Beside the Ibn Tulun Mosque, the Gayer-Anderson Museum joins two old Cairo houses from 1540 and 1632. British officer Robert Grenville Gayer-Anderson restored and filled them with antiquities while living here from 1935 to 1942.

25. Coptic Museum

Coordinates
30.00563, 31.23055
In one line
In Coptic Cairo, the Coptic Museum holds the world's largest collection of Coptic Christian art. Founded in 1908 by Marcus Simaika Pasha and opened in 1910, it gathers around sixteen thousand objects across twelve chronological sections.

26. Al-Azhar Park

Coordinates
30.04055, 31.26305
In one line
Al-Azhar Park, opened in 2005 by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, turned a centuries-old rubble dump into 30 hectares of gardens above Historic Cairo. Excavation revealed a buried twelfth-century Ayyubid wall, and terraces open sweeping city views.

27. Cairo Opera House

Coordinates
30.04245, 31.22353
In one line
On Gezira Island, the Cairo Opera House opened in 1988 as a gift from Japan to Egypt. Its main hall seats 1,200, and the complex replaced the historic Khedivial Opera House, which burned down in 1971.

28. Qasr al-Nil Bridge

Coordinates
30.0445, 31.2289
In one line
Guarded by four bronze lions, the Qasr al-Nil Bridge links downtown Cairo to Gezira Island. First built between 1869 and 1871 and rebuilt from 1931 to 1933, it spans the Nile beside Tahrir Square.

29. Bayt al-Suhaymi

Coordinates
30.05222, 31.2625
In one line
An Ottoman-era courtyard mansion begun in 1648 on the lane of Darb al-Asfar, Bayt al-Suhaymi preserves the layered rooms, latticed windows, and shaded garden of a wealthy merchant household in old Cairo.

30. Mosque of Amr ibn al-As

Coordinates
30.01, 31.23306
In one line
Founded around 642 in the army camp of Fustat, the Mosque of Amr ibn al-As is the first mosque built in Egypt and one of the earliest in Africa, rebuilt many times into the broad columned hall standing today.

31. Nilometer

Coordinates
30.0069, 31.225
In one line
Built in 861 on Rhoda Island, the Nilometer is a stone-lined well with a central marked column once used to measure the Nile's annual flood, the reading that set Egypt's taxes and predicted the coming harvest.

32. Mosque of Sultan al-Mu'ayyad

Coordinates
30.043, 31.258
In one line
Built between 1415 and 1421 beside the gate of Bab Zuwayla, this grand Mamluk mosque rose where Sultan al-Mu'ayyad Shaykh had once been jailed, its twin minarets standing atop the old Fatimid gate towers.

33. Wikala of al-Ghuri

Coordinates
30.04572, 31.26089
In one line
A five-story merchants' caravanserai built around 1504 by Sultan al-Ghuri, the Wikala of al-Ghuri ringed storerooms and lodgings around a great courtyard. Today it shelters artisans and hosts Sufi whirling performances near al-Azhar.

34. Bab al-Futuh

Coordinates
30.05553, 31.26342
In one line
The northern Gate of Conquests, Bab al-Futuh was rebuilt in stone in 1087 by the vizier Badr al-Jamali. Its rounded towers guard the top of al-Muizz Street, one of three surviving gates of Fatimid Cairo.

35. Bab al-Nasr

Coordinates
30.05417, 31.26472
In one line
The Gate of Victory, Bab al-Nasr was built in 1087 by the vizier Badr al-Jamali on Cairo's north wall. Its great square towers, later inscribed with French names by Napoleon's officers, stand near Bab al-Futuh.

36. El-Fishawy Café

Coordinates
30.0475, 31.2623
In one line
El-Fishawy is one of Cairo's oldest cafés, brewing tea inside Khan el-Khalili since 1797. Run for generations by the El-Fishawy family, its mirrored alley hosted Naguib Mahfouz and stays open around the clock.

37. Café Riche

Coordinates
30.047, 31.238
In one line
Opened in 1908 on Talaat Harb Street, Café Riche became the salon of Cairo's writers and revolutionaries. Naguib Mahfouz held court here, Nasser plotted in 1952, and the 1919 uprising printed flyers in its basement.

38. Talaat Harb Street

Coordinates
30.04891, 31.23952
In one line
Downtown Cairo's grand spine runs about a mile of French neoclassical facades from Tahrir Square to Talaat Harb Square. Once Soliman Pasha Street, it was renamed in 1954 for economist Talaat Harb, founder of Banque Misr.

39. Downtown Cairo

Coordinates
30.0475, 31.23833
In one line
Built from the 1860s under Khedive Ismail, Downtown Cairo, or Wust el-Balad, was modelled on Paris to be the jewel of the Orient. Its gridded boulevards and Belle Epoque facades earned it the name Paris on the Nile.

40. Zamalek

Coordinates
30.06667, 31.21667
In one line
Zamalek is the leafy northern district of Gezira Island in the Nile, home to embassies, Art Deco villas and the Cairo Tower. Once Khedive Ismail's botanical garden, it remains one of Cairo's most genteel quarters.

41. Garden City

Coordinates
30.03528, 31.23111
In one line
Garden City is an early-20th-century riverside district of winding, tree-lined streets and graceful villas, loosely modelled on the English garden city movement. Built by private investors beside the Nile, it now houses the American and British embassies.

42. Maadi

Coordinates
29.9675, 31.23583
In one line
Maadi is a leafy garden suburb roughly 12 kilometres south of Downtown Cairo, planned in 1905 and founded in 1907 by the Delta Land Company. Its tree-lined streets, villas and strict building rules made it a favourite of expatriates.

43. Heliopolis

Coordinates
30.1, 31.33333
In one line
Heliopolis is a planned garden suburb northeast of central Cairo, founded in 1905 by Belgian industrialist Edouard Empain. Its broad boulevards, arcaded apartment blocks and ornate palaces blend Moorish, Persian and European design into a distinctive early-twentieth-century cityscape.

44. City of the Dead

Coordinates
30.04667, 31.27639
In one line
The City of the Dead is a vast Islamic necropolis stretching for kilometers below the Mokattam Hills on Cairo's eastern edge. Begun in the seventh century, its tomb enclosures and domed mausoleums have long doubled as homes for a substantial living population.

45. Mausoleum of Imam al-Shafi'i

Coordinates
30.012, 31.258
In one line
The Mausoleum of Imam al-Shafii honors the ninth-century jurist who founded one of Sunni Islam's major schools of law. Crowned by a vast wooden dome topped with a copper boat, it is the largest freestanding tomb in Egypt.

46. Funerary Complex of Sultan Barquq

Coordinates
30.05, 31.261
In one line
The Funerary Complex of Sultan Barquq is a vast Mamluk khanqah in Cairo's Northern Cemetery, built by his son Faraj between 1400 and 1411. Its twin stone domes were among the earliest large masonry domes raised in the city.

47. Boulaq

Coordinates
30.053, 31.23
In one line
Boulaq is a historic working-class district on the Nile beside downtown Cairo. Established in the fourteenth century on newly exposed riverbank, it became the city's main port and later home to Egypt's pioneering Bulaq printing press.

48. Mosque of al-Sayyida Nafisa

Coordinates
30.0225, 31.25214
In one line
The Mosque of al-Sayyida Nafisa enshrines a revered descendant of the Prophet Muhammad who died in Cairo in the year 824. One of the city's most cherished pilgrimage sites, it has been rebuilt and restored many times across the centuries.

49. Roda Island

Coordinates
30.021, 31.226
In one line
Roda Island sits in the Nile in central Cairo, a green neighborhood famous for the ancient Nilometer at its southern tip and the lavish Manial Palace at its northern end. Gardens, river views and layered history fill its riverbank.

50. El Sawy Culture Wheel

Coordinates
30.06228, 31.21642
In one line
A buzzing cultural center tucked beneath the 15th May Bridge on Gezira Island in Zamalek. Founded in 2003 by Mohamed El-Sawy, it draws thousands each month for concerts, theatre, exhibitions, and workshops along the Nile.

51. Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Museum

Coordinates
30.03556, 31.21972
In one line
An early-20th-century palace in Giza holding one of the Middle East's finest collections of French Impressionist art. Opened to the public in 1962, it gathers works by Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Rodin, assembled by Egyptian statesman Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil.

52. Imbaba

Coordinates
30.0925, 31.20056
In one line
A dense, working-class district in northern Giza, west of the Nile, ranked among the most crowded neighborhoods on earth. Once famous for its Friday camel market and the 1798 Battle of the Pyramids, Imbaba pulses with everyday Cairo life.

Roots Earth in short

Roots Earth has audio stories about 5,665 places in 130 cities, 25 countries and 6 regions, written by local people.

  • No account
  • Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection
  • Audio stories in English and German in every city, and in Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian in 126 of the 130 cities

Roots Earth for Android is available on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rootsearth.app.