The memory of a place depends on what the society collects through time, even if it were oral, written, or drawn, and by this; they represent dialectical relation between humans, history, and geography.
Human, Time, and Place are three dimensions of the urban system that are necessary to the life circle of the city and its urban development. Here come the maps as an important mechanism that allows us to recognize the urban system of the city and its memory. In addition, from this, we can portray a whole image or semi whole image of the city as it was in the past or as it will be in the future. The image that necessary to objectively realize and track the milestones of the city’s journey in its time and place frames, despite the difference of expressions or the evolutions of scientific techniques along with the evolution of cartography itself.
The map in this place is an image of what happened, happening, or to happen…
It is a documentation of a past or possible incident to the city’s urban, human, and community…
Therefore, the map is an instrument that we could see the city through it in the past or in the future…
The map here is a document of geography and its vocabularies, just as the written words as the document of history and its language…
Here comes the book “Cairo Cartography, a witness of urban” to introduce an analytical study of the historical maps of Cairo as significant references for tracking and interpreting the urban of the city, which integrates with the other references to give us the chance to a comprehensive understanding of the city’s urban. The book uses the urban analysis methodology in tracking the urban development of Cairo from 750 AD until the end of the 20th century, as well as the comparison of that to the current urban status. It also summarizes a research journey through multiple resources and references to reproduce more than 100 maps that analyze Cairo’s urban since its foundation until now to include analysis of the urban morphology and the locations of political, economic, societal, and managerial institutions and many other urban elements of Cairo. The book represents samples of historical and recent maps that introduce the urban of the city from 750 AD until 2020.