c. 1935 Albert Otto \'Tourist Map of Cairo [Egypt] and Environs\' - Pictorial Map For Sale

Cairo Between the Wars: A Vivid Color Plan of the City at Its Colonial Peak

In the decades between the two world wars, Cairo was one of the great cosmopolitan cities of the world — a capital of Egyptian nationalism, a hub of British imperial administration, and a destination for tourists arriving by ship through Port Said and Suez. This tourist plan, sketched by Albert Otto and published by the Oriental Commercial Bureau of Port Said, captures the city at that moment: a place of ancient mosques and European boulevards, of the Citadel and Garden City, of the Khedival opera house district and the felucca-lined Nile. It is a map made for visitors who wanted to find their way from the Egyptian Museum to the Khan el-Khalili, from the Mohammed Ali Mosque to the Pyramids — and it does so with elegance and clarity.

The Map in Detail

The main sheet is a large-scale color plan of central and greater Cairo at 1:15,000, oriented with north at upper right. The city is rendered in warm orange against a pale ground, with the River Nile and its branches in blue threading through the composition. Gezira Island — with its Sporting Club grounds — and Roda Island are clearly identified. The major districts are labeled in large type: Shubra and Abbasiya in the north, Zamalek and Bulak on the river, Ezbekiya and Musky at the city\'s commercial heart, Bab el-Luk and Addin, Kasr el-Dubara and Garden City, Saiyda Zeinar, Giza, and Old Cairo in the south.

Landmarks are identified throughout with pictorial symbols and labels: the Egyptian Museum, Ezbekiya Garden, El-Azhar Mosque, the Mohammed Ali Mosque and El-Rifai Mosque at the Citadel complex (shown with particular care), Ibn Tulun Mosque, Sultan Hussein Mosque, Amr Mosque, and the Zoological Gardens. The railway — including the Main Station — and tram lines are shown, along with cemeteries and major road arteries radiating outward to the suburbs.

A grid of letter-number coordinates frames the sheet for easy reference. In the lower right corner, an inset map of the Cairo environs pulls back to show the wider region: the Pyramids of Giza and Sakkara to the southwest, Helwan to the south, the Libyan Desert to the west, and the Arabian Desert and Muqattam hills to the east. The original slip case, preserved with the map, carries the publisher\'s imprint and advertisements for two companion publications — a map and notes on the Nile Valley, and a map and notes on the Suez Canal — along with a notice of postcards and photographs covering \"Egypt and Palestine,\" confirming a date in the British Mandate period, before 1948.

Historical Context

The Oriental Commercial Bureau of Port Said was one of several enterprises catering to the substantial tourist and expatriate trade that flowed through Egypt\'s canal cities in the interwar decades. Port Said, as the gateway through which virtually every European traveler entered Egypt, was a natural base for publishers of tourist maps, guides, and photographic materials. The bureau\'s output — this Cairo plan, its Nile Valley and Suez Canal companions — represents the commercial geography of imperial tourism at its height.

Cairo in this period was a city of dramatic contrasts. The Khedival-era European districts — Garden City, Zamalek, Ezbekiya — sat alongside the dense medieval fabric of Islamic Cairo, the bazaars of the Khan el-Khalili, and the ancient mosques of the Fatimid city. The Egyptian Museum, opened in 1902, drew visitors to Tahrir Square; the discovery of Tutankhamun\'s tomb in 1922 had made pharaonic Egypt the sensation of the decade. This map was made for travelers navigating all of it — and it reflects a city that would be fundamentally transformed by the revolution of 1952 and the end of the British presence.

Publication History and Census

Published by the Oriental Commercial Bureau, Port Said (Egypt), P.O.B. 335; sketched by Albert Otto (not further identified). Dating is established by the reference to \"Egypt and Palestine\" in the publisher\'s advertising, placing this firmly before May 1948.