Helwan District

This article is about Helwan District, for Helwan City. For other uses, see Helwan.

Qism Helwan حي حلوان ϩⲁⲗⲟⲩⲁⲛ
District of Cairo
Hayy Helwan
Farouk's palace
Qism Helwan Location in Egypt
Coordinates: 29°50′43″N 31°20′00″E
Country	Egypt
Governorate	Cairo
Area
• Total	25 sq mi (65 km2)
Population  (2017)
• Total	521,239
Time zone	UTC+2 (EST)

Helwan Qism (Arabic: قسم وحي حلوان) is an ancient district of South Cairo, Egypt, located on the Nile shore. As of its 2023 census, the official population of the Helwan District is 557,620.

Etymology

According to Ali Mubarak's Tawfiq plans, the name "Halwan" was applied to three regions: one in Khorasan near Nishapur, one in Iraq near the mountains of Baghdad, and one in Egypt, purported to be named after Halwan ibn Imran ibn al-Haf ibn Quda'ah. Mubarak described it as a village east of the Nile, about two leagues from Fustat.

Yaqut al-Hamawi's Mu'jam al-Buldan and al-Maqrizi's Khitat instead attribute the name to Halwan ibn Amr ibn Imru' al-Qais, a king of Egypt descended from Qahtan, who is said to have commanded part of Abraha's army in the Levant. By this account, the settlement, once called Ma'murah, has existed for about 1,358 years.

The name Helwan is also said to derive from an earlier village of the same name on the west bank of the Nile, opposite Badrashin.

History

Farouk′s palace

Helwan wax museum

Helwan Egypt Villa Wanda

Helwan was a Pharaonic settlement and one of Egypt's oldest cities. The Wadi Jarawi area in Wadi Hof contains the oldest known water dam.

In 1849, a professor at the Cairo School of Medicine promoted the health benefits of sulfur springs, and the government of Khedive Abbas I sent soldiers to exploit the sulfur springs at Helwan. The experiment was reported a success, and a wooden tank and two small rooms were built there, which drew large numbers of Egyptian visitors and some European visitors.

In 1868, Khedive Ismail, the Khedive of Egypt, sent a scientific committee to study the springs and ordered the Public Works Department to build a bathhouse. While laying the foundation, workers found a circular basin about eight meters in diameter built of 25-centimeter red brick lined with limestone along with broken columns, bases, and capitals. The basin has been identified with a bathhouse described by Al-Maqrizi.

Facilities eventually included baths for Europeans, a private bath for the Khedive, and fourteen public baths, along with a 40-room hotel first called the Grand Hotel and later the Grand Baths Hotel.

Cairo and Helwan were connected by railway and by the Nile. Trains ran every half hour from Bab al-Louq station until 1909.

King Fouad I converted the Hayat Hotel into the Fouad I Sanatorium. Zulfiqar Pasha built the Japanese Garden between 1917 and 1920. King Farouk later purchased the Casino San Giovanni, which became the Helwan Corner (Farouk Corner) Museum. A natural spring emerged in 1939, and the Helwan wax museum, founded in Cairo by Fouad Abdel Malek in 1934, was relocated near it.

After the July 23 Revolution, Helwan shifted from a health resort to an industrial center, and many of its buildings and palaces were later demolished. Within Helwan Governorate, the districts of Al-Ma'asara and Al-Tebbin became sources of pollution, while the Helwan district itself remained relatively unaffected due to the absence of factories there.

Helwan is among the largest suburbs of Cairo by area, and is located in the far south. The city is located south of Al-Tabbin, to the north by El Masara district, and to the east by 15th of May (city). The Nile River is located west of the city. Helwan University's campus is located in the Ain Helwan area.

Helwan is Cairo's largest industrial center, with factories producing iron and steel, cement, and military equipment, as well as the Nasr Automotive Factory, the Sigwart Factory in Maasara, and the Egyptian Company for the Manufacture of Telephone Equipment (Quick Tel) in Maasara. Helwan was made an independent governorate separate from Cairo, but the Council of Ministers reannexed it to Cairo Governorate after the revolution of January 25, 2011.

Helwan District Map

Notable individuals

Among the influential figures in the history of Egypt who were born in Helwan are:

• The writer Gamal El-Ghitani.
• Dina Abdel Aziz Member of the Egyptian House of Representatives for the Helwan district in the 2016 Parliament.
• Saleh Pasha Sobhi, one of the oldest residents of Helwan in the early nineteenth century, and there is a main street named after him.
• Former football player Hossam Hassan.
• Former football player Ibrahim Hassan.

See also

• Helwan Governorate
• Helwan 300 Plane
• Helwan University
• Ain Helwan
• Kofrah Dam
• Kafr El-Alaw
• El-Tebbin
• Helwan wax museum
• Japanese Garden