Aswan
From Free net encyclopedia
Image:Egypt.Aswan.RiverView.01.jpg |
Image:Railway Station Street, Aswan, Egypt, Oct 2004 A.jpg |
Image:Railway Station Street, Aswan, Egypt, Oct 2004 B.jpg |
Image:Aswan Street, Egypt, Oct 2004.jpg |
Aswan (Arabic: أسوان Aswān) (Template:Coor dm, population 200,000) is a city in the south of Egypt, the capital of the Aswan Governorate. It stands on the east bank of the Nile at the first cataract and is a busy market and tourist center.
Aswan is one of the driest inhabited places in the world; as of early 2001, the last rain here was 6 years ago. In Nubian settlements they generally do not bother to roof all of the rooms in their houses.
This is identified with the ancient city of Syene, which is famous for providing a basis on which Eratosthenes disputed the Flat Earth theory and attempted to determine the circumference of the Earth, using Syene as the originating point and Alexandria as the terminal point of a measured arc to make an accurate estimate of the circumference of the Earth.
See also: Aswan Dam, Elephantine, Kitchener's Island
Template:Commonsaf:Aswan ar:أسوان ca:Assuan cs:Asuán da:Aswan de:Assuan es:Asuán eo:Asŭano fr:Assouan gl:Asuán - أسوان id:Aswan it:Assuan lt:Asuanas nl:Aswan ja:アスワン no:Aswan pl:Asuan pt:Assuão ru:Асуан sv:Assuan