Everything you always wanted to know about Giza, Egypt.

I just played a chess game against someone who lives in Giza, Egypt. He was killing me but somehow I got a draw.

Giza is an Egyptian city on the west bank of the Nile, near Cairo. The Giza Plateau is home to iconic Egyptian monuments, including 3 tall pyramids built as royal mausoleums around the 26th century B.C. The largest, the Great Pyramid, is King Khufu’s tomb. The Great Sphinx is a vast sculpture of a man’s head on a lion’s body. The Solar Boat Museum displays a restored cedar barge found buried near the Great Pyramid.

Elevation: 62′
Area: 610 mi²
Population: 8.8 million (Oct 2018)
Founded: 642 AD

Giza experiences a hot desert climate like arid climate (Köppen: BWh). Its climate is similar to Cairo, owing to its proximity. Wind storms can be frequent across Egypt in spring, bringing Saharan dust into the city during the months of March and April.

Giza's most famous land form and archaeological site, the Giza Plateau, holds some major monuments of Egyptian history, and is home to the Great Sphinx. Once thriving with the Nile that flowed right into the Giza Plateau, the pyramids of Giza were built overlooking the ancient Egyptian capital city of Memphis, across the river from modern day Cairo. The Giza Plateau is also home to Egyptian monuments such as the tomb of Pharaoh Djet of the First Dynasty, as well as that of Pharaoh Ninetjer of the Second Dynasty. The Great Pyramid of Giza at one time was advocated (1884) as the location for the Prime Meridian, a reference point used for determining a base longitude.[6]

Ancient eras[edit]

The area in what is now Giza served as the necropolis of several pharaohs who ruled ancient Egypt, during the 2nd millennium BC. Three of these tombs, in the form of giant pyramids, are what is now the famed Three Pyramids of Giza.
Classical to medieval era[edit]

As ancient Egypt passed under several conquests under the Persians, Greeks, Romans and Byzantines, so did the area in what is now Giza. A Byzantine village named Teresa, located south of Giza, existed before the Muslim conquest of the region.[9][10]

Native Egyptians called the area Tiperses (also Tiperses Nbabylon (which most likely refers to Babylon Fortress but may as well refer to Babylon in Mesopotamia) Tipersoi, Perso), which may correspond to Persians (as the name may be literally translated as "Persians of/from Babylon"), but the exact origin of this name remains unclear.[11][12]

As Muslims of the fledgling Islamic caliphate went on with their conquest of Egypt from the Byzantine Empire beginning in 639 AD, three years after their victory at the battle of Yarmouk in 636 AD, they conquered all of the land by the time they have captured the city of Alexandria in 641 AD. A year later in 642 AD (year 21 in Islamic calendar), they founded the city of Giza. Its name, al-Jizzah in Arabic, means "the valley" or "the plateau", pertaining to the area's topography.
Industries here include movies, chemicals, machinery and cigarettes. In addition, Giza has many luxury apartment buildings along the Nile, making it a popular place to live.

Giza is most famous as the location of the Giza Plateau: the site of some of the most impressive ancient monuments in the world, including a complex of ancient Egyptian royal mortuary and sacred structures, including the Great Sphinx, the Great Pyramid of Giza, and a number of other large pyramids and temples. Giza has always been a focal point in Egypt's history due to its location close to Memphis, the ancient Pharaonic capital of the Old Kingdom. Its St. George cathedral is the episcopal see of the Coptic Catholic Eparchy of Giza.