A 10km park twice the size of Central Park is rising in Egypt’s new desert capital

Egypt’s New Administrative Capital, built from scratch in the desert roughly 45 kilometres east of Cairo, includes a roughly 10-kilometre-long Central Park running like a green spine through the city — described as twice the size of New York’s Central Park — designed to combat desertification while supporting the wellbeing of residents.

The park surrounds the Central Business District, home to the Iconic Tower, a 385-metre skyscraper that became Africa’s first supertall building. Beyond the business district, the broader capital has been designed around smart city principles, incorporating digital services, renewable energy infrastructure and planned public transit intended to connect the new capital back to Cairo, including a light rail network and monorail linking directly into the existing Cairo Metro system.

The roughly 700-square-kilometre city, comparable in size to Singapore, was first announced by Egypt’s then-housing minister Mostafa Madbouly in March 2015 as part of the country’s Vision 2030 economic strategy, with construction formally beginning in 2016. It is overseen by the Administrative Capital for Urban Development, a company in which Egypt’s military holds a 51 percent stake and the Ministry of Housing the remaining 49 percent.

More than a decade after it was announced, government ministries, the Egyptian parliament and other state institutions have already relocated there in phases, with tens of thousands of government employees now working in the new city and the resident population projected to grow as further housing phases are completed.