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Cairo University

public university with its main campus in Giza, Egypt

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 13, 2026
Entity authorityQ194445
Source-derived summary

Cairo University is a public university in Giza, Egypt. Founded on 21 December 1908, the university is the second oldest institution of higher education in Egypt after Al-Azhar University, notwithstanding the pre-existing higher professional schools that later became constituent colleges of the university.

The university was known as the Egyptian University from 1908 to 1940, and King Fuad I University and Fu'ād al-Awwal University from 1940 to 1952. The main campus is in Giza, immediately across the Nile from Cairo. After being housed in various parts of Cairo, its faculties, beginning with the Faculty of Arts, were established on its current main campus in Giza in October 1929.

The university was founded and funded as the Egyptian University by a committee of private citizens with royal patronage in 1908 and became a state institution under King Fuad I in 1925. In 1940, four years following his death, the university was renamed King Fuad I University in his honor. It was renamed a second time after the 1952 Egyptian revolution. The university currently enrolls approximately 155,000 students in 20 faculties and 3 institutions. It counts three Nobel Laureates among its graduates and is one of the 50 largest institutions of higher education in the world by enrollment.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Cairo University” is public university with its main campus in Giza, Egypt. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Cairo, University and public, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewMost valuable as an event-and-institution map that identifies actors, dates and record creators for deeper historical inquiry. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1908, 1940, 1952, 1929—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1908. For this dossier, Cairo, University and public is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “public university with its main campus in Giza, Egypt” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q194445. VIAF identifies the subject as 126523066. The Library of Congress control number is n80146420. Authority coordinates are 30.028, 31.210. 2 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1908, 1940, 1952 and 1929.

Critical limits

Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Cairo University”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Cairo University primary sources, Cairo University archive and Cairo research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Cairo University”?
  2. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
  3. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Cairo University” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.