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Egyptian Deputy Prime Minister Boutros Boutros-Ghali served as Secretary General of the United Nations from 1991 to 1996.

The Egyptians were one of the first major civilizations to codify design elements in art. The wall paintings done in the service of the Pharaohs followed a rigid code of visual rules and meanings. Early Egyptian art is characterized by absence of linear perspective, which results in a seemingly flat space. These artists tended to create images based on what they knew, and not as much on what they see. Objects in these artworks generally do not decrease in size as they increase in distance and there is little shading to indicate depth. Sometimes, distance is indicated through the use of tiered space, where more distant objects are drawn higher above the nearby objects, but in the same scale and with no overlapping of forms. People and objects are almost always drawn in profile.

The region around the Nile is one of the oldest continually-inhabited areas in the world. Ancient Egyptian musicians are known to have played harps and flutes circa 4000 BC, and double clarinets and lyres from around 3500 BC. Percussion instruments were added to orchestras by 2000 BC. It is probable that no system of musical notation existed at the time, as none have survived. The music of ancient Egypt has not been documented, but some musicologists believe that the liturgical music of the Coptic Church is directly descended from ancient Egyptian music.

The Shura Council is the 264-member upper house of Parliament created in 1980. The Shura Council roughly translates to the ‘Consultative Council’ in English. In the Shura Council 174 members are directly elected and 88 members are appointed by the President of the Republic for 6-year terms. One half of the Shura Council is renewed every three years.

The literacy rate is about 55% of the adult population. Education is free through university and compulsory from ages six through 15. Rates for primary and secondary education have strengthened in recent years. Ninety-three percent of children enter primary school and about one-quarter drop out after the sixth year; in 1994-95, 87% entered primary school and about half dropped out after the sixth year. There are 20,000 primary and secondary schools with some 10 million students, 13 major universities with more than 500,000 students, and 67 teacher colleges. Major universities include Cairo University (100,000 students), Alexandria University, and the 1,000-year-old Al-Azhar University, one of the world's major centers of Islamic learning.

The People’s Assembly is the principal legislative body. Out of the assembly’s 454 deputies 444 are directly elected while 10 are appointed by the President. The Constitution reserves fifty percent of the assembly seats for ‘workers and peasants’. The assembly sits for a five-year term but can be dissolved earlier by the President. All seats are voted on in each election. Four Hundred seats are voted on using proportional representation while the remaining forty-four are elected in local majority votes.

By some accounts there are more than 40 million Coptic Orthodox Christians in the world: they are found primarily in Egypt (roughly 10 million), Ethiopia (roughly 30 million), and Eritrea (roughly 2 million), but there are significant numbers in Sudan and Israel, and in diaspora throughout the world. However, as applied to the Tewahedo Church of Ethiopia, which before 1950 was a part of the Coptic Church of Egypt, the word Coptic can be considered a misnomer because it means Egyptian. The Eritrean Orthodox Church similarly became independent of the Tewahedo Church during the 1990s. These three churches remain in full communion with each other and with the other Oriental Orthodox churches.

The river carves a narrow, cultivated floodplain, never more than 20 kilometers wide, as it travels northward toward Cairo from Lake Nasser on the Sudanese border, behind the Aswan High Dam. Just north of Cairo, the Nile spreads out over what was once a broad estuary that has been filled by riverine deposits to form a fertile delta about 250 kilometers wide (150 mi.) at the seaward base and about 160 kilometers (96 mi) from south to north.

A series of International Monetary Fund arrangements, coupled with massive external debt relief resulting from Egypt's participation in the Gulf War coalition, helped Egypt improve its macroeconomic performance during the 1990s. Through sound fiscal and monetary policies, Cairo tamed inflation, slashed budget deficits, and built up foreign reserves. Although the pace of structural reforms, such as privatization and new business legislation, has been slower than the IMF envisioned, Egypt's steps toward a more market-oriented economy have prompted increased foreign investment. Lower combined hard currency inflows - from tourism, worker remittances, oil revenues, and Suez Canal tolls - in 1998 and the first half of 1999 resulted in pressure on the Egyptian pound and sporadic dollar shortages, but external payments were not in crisis. Despite ample reserves, the Central Bank did not provide sufficient hard currency to commercial banks and Cairo restricted imports for a short period; these developments confirmed to some investors and currency traders that government financial operations lack sufficient coordination and openness. Monetary pressures have since eased, however, with the continued oil price recovery starting in mid-1999 and a moderate rebound in tourism. Increased gas exports are a major plus factor in future growth.