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Egypt (/'i?d??pt/&_160;(help·info); Arabic ????, Mi?r or Má?r) is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia. Covering an area of about 1,010,000&_160;square kilometers (390,000&_160;sq&_160;mi), Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west. Egypt is one of the most populous countries in Africa and the Middle East. The great majority of its estimated 82 million[1] live near the banks of the Nile River, in an area of about 40,000&_160;square kilometers (15,000&_160;sq&_160;mi), where the only arable agricultural land is found. The large areas of the Sahara Desert are sparsely inhabited. About half of Egypt's residents live in urban areas, with the majority spread across the densely-populated centres of greater Cairo, Alexandria and other major cities in the Nile Delta. Egypt is famous for its ancient civilization and some of the world's most famous monuments, including the Giza pyramid complex and its Great Sphinx. The southern city of Luxor contains numerous ancient artifacts, such as the Karnak Temple and the Valley of the Kings. Egypt is widely regarded as an important political and cultural nation of the Middle East. One of the ancient Egyptian names of the country, Kemet (k?t), (from kem "black"), is derived from the fertile black soils deposited by the Nile floods, distinct from the deshret, or "red land" (dš?t), of the desert.[3] The name is realized as kimi and kim? in the Coptic stage of the Egyptian language, and appeared in early Greek as ??µ?a (Khemía).[4] Another name was t3-mry "land of the riverbank".[5] The names of Upper and Lower Egypt were Ta-Sheme'aw (t3-šm?w) "sedgeland" and Ta-Mehew (t3 m?w) "northland", respectively.
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