Helouan
|
Helwan حلوان |
|
|---|---|
| City | |
 Helwan
|
|
| Coordinates: 29°51′N 31°20′E / 29.850°N 31.333°E | |
| Country |
 Egypt
|
| Governorate | Cairo |
| Population (2006) | |
| • Total | 643,327 |
| Time zone | EST (UTC+2) |
Helwan (Arabic: حلوان Ḥelwān, IPA: [ħelˈwæːn], Coptic: ϩⲁⲗⲟⲩⲁⲛHalouan), is a city in Egypt and part of Greater Cairo, on the bank of the Nile, opposite the ruins of Memphis. Originally a southern suburb of Cairo, it served as the capital of the now defunct Helwan Governorate from April 2008 to April 2011, after which it was re-incorporated into the Cairo Governorate. The kism of Helwan had a population of 643,327 at the 2006 population census.
The Helwan and Isnian cultures of the late epipaleolithic, and their Ouchata retouch methods for creating microlithic tools are help to have led to the development of the Harifian cultural assemblage of the Sinai, which may have introduced Proto-Semitic languages into the Middle East.
Around 3000 to 2600 BC there was a cemetery near Helwan serving the city of Memphis.
The Khedivial Astronomical Observatory was built here 1903-1904, and was used to observe Halley's comet. Egypt's oldest and largest private psychiatric clinic, the Behman Hospital, was also constructed here in 1939.
During the early part of the 20th century, the city was the site of RAF Helwan, a major British airfield, which was later used by the Egyptian Air Force.
In 1959 Helwan was chosen to serve as a site of a major industrial city, as part of President Gamal Abdel Nasser's attempts to industrialize Egypt. Throughout the 1960s it developed into a massive steel works zone, with numerous automobile factories being built. The site continues to use electricity from the Aswan Dam and iron ore from Egypt's western deserts. Helwan was gradually transformed into a mass suburb of Cairo for the working class.
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