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Cairo, Egypt

July 6th, 2007 / / Links: Google Earth, Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps, Virtual Earth / Nearest places
 

Cairo, which means "The Vanquisher" or "The Triumphant", is the capital city of Egypt. While Al-Qahirah is the official name of the city, in Egyptian Arabic it is typically called simply by the name of the country, Masr. It has a metropolitan area population of about 15.75 million people. Cairo is the seventh most populous metropolitan area in the world. It is also the most populous metropolitan area in Africa.

Old Cairo or Al-Fustat was founded in AD 648 near other Egyptian cities and villages, including the old Egyptian capital Memphis, Heliopolis, Giza and the Byzantine fortress of Babylon-in-Egypt. However, Fustat was itself a new city built as a military garrison for Arab troops and was the closest central location to Arabia that was accessible to the Nile. Fustat became a regional center of Islam during the Umayyad period and was where the Umayyad ruler, Marwan II, made his last stand against the Abbasids. Later, during the Fatimid era, Al-Qahira (Cairo) was officially founded in AD 969 as an imperial capital and it absorbed Fustat. During its history various dynasties would add suburbs to the city and construct important structures that became known throughout the Islamic world including the Al-Azhar mosque. Conquered by Saladin and ruled by Ayyubids starting in 1171, it remained an important center of the Muslim world. Slave soldiers or Mamluks seized Egypt and ruled from their capital at Cairo from 1250 to 1517 when they were defeated by the Ottomans. Following Napoleon's brief occupation, an Ottoman officer named Muhammad Ali made Cairo the capital of an independent empire that lasted from 1801 to 1882. The city came under British control until Egypt attained independence in 1922.

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The Mosque of Muhammad Ali Pasha (Alabaster Mosque), Cairo, Egypt

July 6th, 2007 / / Links: Google Earth, Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps, Virtual Earth / Nearest places
 

The Mosque of Muhammad Ali Pasha or Alabaster Mosque is a mosque situated in the Citadel of Cairo in Egypt and built by Muhammad Ali Pasha between 1830 and 1848.

Situated on the summit of the citadel, this Ottoman mosque, the largest to be built in the first half of the 19th century, is, with its animated silhouette and twin minarets, the most visible mosque in Cairo. The mosque was built in memory of Tusun Pasha, Muhammad Ali's oldest son, who died in 1816.

This mosque, along with the citadel, is one of the landmarks and tourist attractions of Cairo and is one of the first features to be seen when approaching the city from no matter which side.

The mosque was built on the site of old Mamluk buildings in Cairo's Citadel between 1830 and 1848, although not completed until the reign of Said Pasha in 1857. The architect was Yusuf Bushnak from Istanbul and its model was the Yeni Mosque in that city. The ground on which the mosque was erected was built with debris from the earlier buildings of the Citadel.

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Dam and water power station in Niedzica, Poland

July 6th, 2007 / / Links: Google Earth, Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps, Virtual Earth / Nearest places
 

Dam and water power station in Niedzica, Poland.

Length 404m, height 56m.

Send by: lukimaster


Church of Christ - The King, Balin, Poland

July 6th, 2007 / / Links: Google Earth, Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps, Virtual Earth / Nearest places
 

Church of Christ - The King in Balin, Poland

Send by: Snyfucz