Egyptian hieroglyphs use two terms for an urban growth: niwt, meaning a city, and dmi, a town or settlement. The former appears to denote a natural growth, whether large or small, the latter a planned one. The dwellings which composed these were called pr, which means house in the general sense as well as the specific building for occupation, and Izwt, which covers the yard or walled enclosure as well as the house proper. Both terms were used for town houses and country villas.
Geographically Egypt falls into two parts, the delta in the north and the Nile valley in the centre and south, that is, Lower and Upper Egypt. Throughout the historical period most of Egypt was bare, arid desert with a few oases providing the only places to support any life. Out of a total area of 386,000 square miles (l,000,000 sq km) less than 13,500 square miles (35,000 sq km) were cultivable as recently as 1947, a figure that probably exceeds that in Pharaonic times...
