Tahrir Square

‘Liberation Square’ — the symbolic centre of modern Egypt.

Laid out by Khedive Ismail as Midan al-Ismailia, the square was popularly renamed Tahrir — Liberation — around the 1919 revolution and officially after 1952. Ringed by the Egyptian Museum, the old Nile Hilton, and the Mogamma, it has been the stage for the country’s largest gatherings, and its name has become shorthand for a whole idea of public assembly.