6th of October City
6th of October City
The settlement was established in 1979 by the 504th presidential decree of Egyptian president Anwar El Sadat. It is 17 km from the great pyramids of Giza and 32 km from downtown Cairo.[4] The city has a total area of 97.4 thousand feddans (400 km2) and, eventually, is expected to have 3.7 million inhabitants, although there are many unoccupied or incomplete buildings.[5]
It was announced as the capital of the 6th of October Governorate in April 2008. Following the governorate's dissolution in April 2011, in the wake of the Egyptian revolution, it was reincorporated into the Giza Governorate, to which it had originally belonged.
The city's name commemorates the commencement of the October War on 6 October 1973. For this reason, the date was chosen as Egypt's Armed Forces Day.