Economic regions of Egypt

Presidential Decree 495/1977 divided Egypt into eight (later seven after Matrouh was merged into Alexandria) economic regions for economic and physical planning purposes, that do not have any new administrative representation in the local government hierarchy.^[1]

Instead, each region is composed of a number of contiguous governorates, with one declared as capital of the region (that governorate's capital city).

Art. 2 established a Higher Committee for Regional Planning in each region, headed by the governor of that region's capital, and comprising the governors, heads of the Local Executive Councils, and the head of the national-level General Organization for Physical Planning as secretary general.

Art. 3 set out a Planning Administration for each region that is affiliated to the Ministry of (Economic) Planning. In 2008 this was changed to a Regional Center for Urban Planning and Development affiliated to the GOPP.^[2] However, it was believed that planning based on these units was unrealistic thus decentralization efforts were put in place.^[3]

Economic region	Area (km2)	Population (2015)	GDP (billion EGP)[4]	GDP (billion US$)
Greater Cairo	17,342	21,969,529	2,986.037	190.211
Alexandria	224,076	11,064,294	970.284	61.807
Suez Canal	90,020	9,555,718	902.566	57.493
Delta	12,357	19,145,755	886.439	56.467
South Upper Egypt	216,212	10,573,686	386.923	24.647
North Upper Egypt	47,970	11,183,684	351.674	22.402
Central Upper Egypt	402,431	4,470,631	143.106	9.116
Egypt	1,010,408	94,798.827	6,627.028	422.142