Egypt built a new capital the size of Singapore in the desert east of Cairo

About 45 kilometres east of Cairo, in a stretch of desert that held nothing but flat, arid gravel and sand only a decade ago, Egypt has built an entire new city from the ground up. Officially called the New Administrative Capital and more recently renamed The New Capital, the project spans roughly 700 square kilometres between the Cairo Suez road and the Regional Ring Road — an area comparable in size to Singapore.

Cairo has long struggled under the weight of its own size, home to roughly a fifth of Egypt’s population and known for chronic traffic congestion, air pollution and overcrowding that officials have described as increasingly difficult to manage. Plans for the new capital were first announced by Egypt’s then-housing minister Mostafa Madbouly at the Egypt Economic Development Conference in March 2015, as part of the country’s broader Vision 2030 economic strategy.

Construction formally began in 2016 and has continued in phases since, overseen by the Administrative Capital for Urban Development, a company in which Egypt’s military holds a 51 percent stake and the Ministry of Housing holds the remaining 49 percent. More than a decade after the project was announced, government ministries, the Egyptian parliament and other state institutions have already relocated there in phases, with tens of thousands of government employees now working in the new city.

The broader capital has been designed around smart city principles, incorporating digital services, renewable energy infrastructure and planned public transit intended to connect it back to Cairo, including a light rail network and monorail linking directly into the existing Cairo Metro system.