Helwan

Helwan is a large suburban district in the far south of Cairo, on the east bank of the Nile directly opposite the ruins of Memphis. It is one of the oldest continually inhabited places in Egypt, with settlement beginning in the mid sixth millennium BCE; the El Omari culture lived in Wadi Hof, a cemetery serving Memphis stood here around 3300 to 2600 BC, and the world oldest major dam, Sadd el-Kafara, was built here around 2600 BCE. Its name is usually derived from Ain-an, spring of the fish, after the therapeutic spring baths of the area. Helwan was the temporary capital of Umayyad Egypt in 689 CE and later a spa town, and until the 1960s it was a city in its own right before becoming contiguous with Cairo. Between April 2008 and April 2011 it was again a city and the capital of the short-lived Helwan Governorate. Today it is Cairo largest industrial centre, with iron and steel, cement and military factories, and the kism of Helwan had 557,620 people in the 2023 census.