Family · Cairo
Garbage City
A quarter of Manshiyat Naser at the foot of the Mokattam hills, whose economy runs on collecting and recycling the city's waste.
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The story
The quarter sits at the far southern end of Manshiyat Naser, at the base of the Mokattam hills on Cairo's outskirts. It is the city's largest concentration of garbage collectors known as the Zabbaleen, and its economy revolves around collecting and recycling waste. The area has streets, shops and apartments like other parts of Cairo, but lacks infrastructure and often has no running water, sewers or electricity. Manshiyat Naser is sometimes called the Christian suburb.
Good to know
- The Manshiyat Naser district had about 258,000 residents in the 2017 census, over 5.54 square kilometres.
- It is Cairo's largest concentration of Zabbaleen, the garbage collectors.
- The nearby Cave Church (Monastery of Saint Simon) is carved into the Mokattam rock and is described as one of the largest churches in the Middle East.