Alexandria is the third-largest city in Egypt after Cairo and Giza, the seventh-largest city in Africa, and a major economic centre. Called the "Bride of the Mediterranean" by locals, Alexandria is the largest city on the Mediterranean, the fourth-largest city in the Arab world, and the ninth-largest urban area in Africa. The city extends about 40 km at the northern coast of Egypt along the Mediterranean Sea. Alexandria is a popular tourist destination, and an important industrial centre due to its natural gas and oil pipelines from Suez.
Alexandria was founded in c. 331 BC by Alexander the Great on the site of an existing settlement named Rhacotis. Alexandria grew rapidly, becoming a major centre of Hellenic civilisation, and replacing Memphis as Egypt's capital during the reign of the Ptolemaic pharaohs who succeeded Alexander. It retained this status for almost a millennium, through the period of Roman and Eastern Roman rule until the Muslim conquest of Egypt in 641 AD, when a new capital was founded at Fustat.