Tahrir Square (ميدان التحرير), also known as Martyr Square, is a public town square in downtown Cairo, Egypt. Located in the heart of downtown Cairo, with the Nile River bordering its western side, Tahrir has more than 20 streets pouring into it.
Tahrir Square at night
The essence of Tahrir Square is very well put by an Egyptian writer Samir Raafat, who wrote in the Cairo Times: “Maidan al-Tahrir cannot sit still. Whether reflecting the city's moods or the leadership's political agenda, the nation's most important plaza has gone from faux Champs de Mars to Stalinesque esplanade.
This square has been the location and focus for political demonstrations and has witnessed many glorious chapters of Egyptian history. After the Egyptian Revolution of 1919, the square became widely known as Tahrir (Liberation) Square.
Here’s a look into the square’s rich history and architectural past:
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From Swamp to Square: The Early Years
Up to the 19th century, the site of Midan al-Tahrir was a large swamp replenished faithfully with each summer flood. One of its aims was to reclaim Cairo's western flank which would make room for the famous "Kasr" series: Kasr al-Aini, Kasr al-Aali, Kasr al-Dubara, Kasr al-Nil and Kasr al-Walda. The new palace district featured a magnificent square.
A new century brought new changes to the Midan. Passers-by took pleasure in admiring the neighborhood's railed-in gardens where proud Nubian bowabs stood guard behind closed iron gates. Not before long these villas were overtaken by smart apartment buildings belonging to affluent businessmen and merchants whose fathers and grandfathers--Messrs.
Coincidently, the square owes its design to another Mubarak: Ali Pasha Mubarak - Egypt’s public works minister in the 1860s. Pasha envisioned Egypt’s future as a modernized, urbanized “Paris on the Nile.” The square, a modern traffic roundabout styled after spaces the ruler had observed in Western Europe, was central to that vision.
The Rise of Nasser and the Symbolism of Tahrir
The square was named for its ruler until 1952, when it would become a symbol of a completely different sort of movement. The Egyptian Revolution of 1952 ended the country’s monarchy rule and occupation by the British. Following the overthrow, the nation’s new leader, Gamel Abdel Nasser, renamed the square Tahrir, meaning liberation.
On 2 September 1954, in its effort to remove all traces of the old regime, Egypt's new leadership renamed 15 Cairo streets and squares. Not only was it a day when the demonstrators fought the city’s riot police to a standstill after Friday prayers, but it also took place in what Nasser and the other leaders of the 1952 military coup had renamed Liberation Square as a symbol of their revolution against the old order.
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Once the site of Britain’s major military barracks, the square was originally intended to be the focus of an annual festival of the revolution based on similar occasions in Paris, Moscow and elsewhere. Deprived of its primary function, the square was transformed into a symbolic focus for the concrete aspirations of the Nasser regime, becoming the site of the Arab League headquarters, the Cairo Hilton (the capital’s first modern world class hotel) and, later, the headquarters of the ruling party, burned down in last Friday’s ‘day of rage.’
There too was the hated Mugamma building which, though built just before the 1952 revolution, rapidly became an icon of the continued system of red tape and bureaucratic inefficiency which the regime used to control the daily lives of its people, as well as, very often, to isolate them from contact with the outside world.
Meanwhile, popular access to the square was usually kept under tight supervision with tanks appearing quickly if there was any sign of a possible disturbance, for example an attempt to attack Nasser’s favored Hilton in an excess of anti-American rage. Carefully orchestrated pro-regime processions were occasionally allowed in, like the one in support of the Arab unity talks taking place under Egyptian auspices in early 1963.
The Americans were to follow suit and put their increasingly fortress-like embassy next to the British. But, as well as housing the symbols of military and political power, Tahrir is home to the civic spirit of Egypt.
In 1951 the government decided to consolidate all its departments that the citizens directly dealt with in one central building, and so Mugamma3 Al-Tahrir was built. And, early in the 1952 revolution, the small mosque near the Mugamma3 was enlarged and dedicated to Sheikh Omar Makram, the popular leader against Napoleon’s French Expedition in 1798, the British ‘Fraser’ Expedition of 1807 and, later, against Muhammad Ali himself when he felt the ruler was taxing the people unfairly.
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In 1962, the first modern international hotel in Egypt, the Nile Hilton, opened in Tahrir, next to the Arab League. The Hilton-now bearing the Ritz-Carlton sign-has been undergoing renovation for years. In front of it is a waste ground surrounded by sheets of corrugated iron-which we will use in the battles for the Midan.
Tahrir Square as a Stage for Protest
Politics returned with a vengeance in 1972 when student demonstrators from the Egyptian University on the other side of the Nile set up their camp in the small circle round one of the square’s empty plinths to protest President Sadat’s apparent lack of action against the continued Israeli military occupation of the Sinai peninsula. Sadat first tried to reason with them in person, and then sent in his police, putting many of them in prison. For perhaps the first time, the freedom suggested by the name of the square was being put to some serious anti-regime use.
Then came Tahrir’s more marginal part in the so-called food riots of 1977, quickly put down by means of a military-backed curfew, but producing a new form of police control in the shape of a green-uniformed force which patrolled the new set of hastily-constructed high walkways in the difficult days of Sadat’s moves to make peace with Israel. And in 1986 it was again well-protected from the few days of rioting by the underpaid armed security police, which was concentrated mainly on attacking night clubs and other signs of foreign influence along the Pyramids Road.
The Midan has been our Holy Grail for forty years. Since 1972 when (then President Anwar) Sadat’s forces dragged the student protestors at dawn from around the empty plinth at its center and into jail, demonstrations and marches have tried and failed to get into Tahrir. Two years ago we managed to hold a corner of a traffic island in front of the Mugamma3 building for an hour.
Now, after several decades, the square is back as the main focus of a huge struggle between the regime and the people, with access to it as fiercely contested as that to any strategic fortress or Winter Palace. Now, the whole country is gathered around that central, plinthless garden.
The Egyptian Revolution of 2011
Cairo’s Tahrir Square has become the epicentre of the uprising against the embattled government of Hosni Mubarak. Tahrir Square was the focal point of the 2011 Egyptian revolution against former president Hosni Mubarak.
Over 50,000 protesters first occupied the square on 25 January, during which the area's wireless services were reported to be impaired. In the following days, Tahrir Square continued to be the primary destination for protests in Cairo. On 29 January, Egyptian fighter aircraft flew low over the people gathered in the square.
The square became established as a focal point and a symbol for the ongoing Egyptian democracy demonstrations. On 2 February, violence erupted between the pro-Mubarak and pro-democracy demonstrators there, followed by the 3 February 'Friday of Departure' demonstration, one of the named "day of" events centered in the square.
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One of the ships in the planned Freedom Flotilla II, intended to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza, was named Tahrir after the square. On 3 July 2013, General Abdul Fatah al-Sisi announced the removal of President Mohamed Morsi and suspended the Egyptian constitution after ongoing public protests.
Tahrir Square during the Egyptian Revolution of 2011
Given this history, it made sense on January 25, 2011 that thousands would choose the square as the site of revolution - the place to make the demand for the removal of their autocrat leader heard.
Control and Reclamation of Space
With each change in power since the revolution, those in control, whether it be the military or Morsi, have attempted to assert authority in Tahrir under the cover of cleaning the square. Just as city officials in New York used beautification and cleanup as means to clear Zuccotti Park of Occupy Wall Street protesters in 2011, Egyptian state and city officials have tried to quell the revolutionary movement at Tahrir through landscaping projects.
At times, it has moved like a peculiar game of cat and mouse: One day, activists set up camp in the square. The next, government officials plant garden patches in the dusty center, where tents have risen. Within a few days, the garden again turns to dirt, any hope of plant life trampled by activity.
“The authorities are trying to clean up the square and make it as if things are okay,” said Sherine Tadros, the Cairo correspondent for Al Jazeera English. But, she said, “the fact that it keeps going back to the sort of bare land shows that the country is not moving on.”
Underlying Tahrir’s history is a subtle battle over the control of space in Cairo. From the beginning, leaders have used the square to reinforce their vision of the nation and its future. Now, Cairo’s people have laid claim to the square by erecting field hospitals, covering walls with political graffiti and allowing street vendors free rein to sell their goods.
They have even set up their own checkpoints - in place to this day - to ensure that regime loyalists don’t attempt to wreak havoc from inside the protests. To all this, government authorities have responded with attempts to reclaim Tahrir, raiding the square with clouds of tear gas and erecting walls on side streets.
Tahrir Square Today
As alterations continue, perhaps sometime in the not-too-distant future a commemoration for the square's original founder could materialize. Midan al-Tahrir's latest new look (currently in the making) includes a mega underground garage and several palm-decked gardens, welcome developments in a city choked by cars and pollution.
At the centre of Tahrir Square is a large and busy traffic circle. An obelisk of Ramses II, previously at Tanis, was installed in 2020. The area around Tahrir Square includes the Egyptian Museum, the Folklore Arts House, the Mogamma government building, the Headquarters of the Arab League building, the Nile Hotel, Kasr El Dobara Evangelical Church and the original downtown campus of the American University in Cairo. The Cairo Metro serves Tahrir Square with the Sadat Station, which is the downtown junction of the system's two lines, linking to Giza, Maadi, Helwan, and other districts and suburbs of Greater Cairo.
Looking beyond Tahrir, Cairo’s urban structure has long reflected the conflicting political aspirations of the Egyptian people, colonial rulers and autocratic dictators. From the British colonial cosmopolitanism of kings Fuad and Farouk, the official last monarchs of Egypt, to the modernist housing projects erected by Nasser in the 20th century, Cairo is a city built by competing narratives. Since the revolution, a new narrative has gradually begun to take hold.
Key Moments in Tahrir Square's History
The following table summarizes key moments in the history of Tahrir Square:
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 19th Century | Area was a large swamp |
| 1860s | Designed by Ali Pasha Mubarak |
| 1919 | Egyptian Revolution of 1919 |
| 1952 | Egyptian Revolution; Square renamed Tahrir (Liberation) |
| 1972 | Student demonstrations against President Sadat |
| 1977 | Food riots |
| 2011 | Egyptian Revolution against Hosni Mubarak |
| 2013 | Protests leading to the removal of President Mohamed Morsi |
| 2020 | Installation of an obelisk of Ramses II |
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