Beautiful sunny Egypt, perhaps, will always attract curious tourists with its delightful sands, colorful colors and centuries-old pyramids. The spirit of antiquity, mystery and spirituality seems to fill this country, making it even more attractive and attractive for lovers of history, travel and a warm climate.
What a tourist should know
Of course, going to this abode of sand and sun, it is advisable to know the main milestones of the history of the country or, in extreme cases, the names of the most famous pyramids, sights and gods. It will not be out of place to get acquainted with the cultural traditions of Egypt, because this will make the vacation truly unforgettable.
However, the currency of Egypt, which is available in your pocket for purchasing all kinds of souvenirs and paying for amazing excursions and masterpieces of local cuisine, is no less important in this regard.
Currency unit
Of course, in any tourist country in the world, they accept euro as well as American dollars that are more familiar to everyone, but it is much more convenient to have local money on hand - this will help to avoid unforeseen situations and reduce the risk of being deceived to a minimum.
The national currency of Egypt is the pound, also known as guineas. A smaller denomination in this territory is piastres, the name of which is known to the majority of the world's population from films about gallant pirates and adventurers.
Something about face value
One Egyptian pound includes 100 piastres, or 1000 millimeters, which are used in circulation much less. Professionals of languages and world currencies are likely to immediately draw an analogy with the British pound sterling and will be partly right, since the traditional guinea really has English roots.
It should be noted that, in colloquial terms, market prices often indicate another Egyptian currency, the lira. This may confuse inexperienced tourists, but it is not worth worrying about this - this is simply an additional designation that does not have a separate material representation, so there will be no guaranteed problems with respect to calculating pounds.
History reference
The national currency of Egypt in an approximation to today's form appeared relatively recently - in 1834. It was then that a royal decree was issued, according to which, corresponding changes were introduced. Note that the corresponding parliamentary bill preceded this.
At that time, the official currency of Egypt was presented in three versions at once: newly introduced and so far unusual pounds, traditional piastres and, finally, a pair. The release of the latter was discontinued only in 1885, some denominations of piastres were gradually withdrawn from circulation.
In 1916, the Egyptian pound and piastres were supplemented by millimes, which replaced the canceled pair and survived to this day. This allowed for changes on a more global scale.
Thanks to the manipulations, the Egyptian pound was able to reach the world level. The gold standard, established between 1885 and 1914, then equated 1 pound to 7.4375 g of pure gold.
Loss of independence
The newfound stability of the Egyptian currency was lost with the outbreak of the First World War, when the monetary unit was artificially created from the British pound at the rate of 0.975 to 1. The situation remained so until 1962, when the US dollar replaced the British currency. At that time, the rate was as follows: 1 Egyptian was 2.3 US currencies.In 1973, another devaluation led to changes (1: 2.5555), and by 1978 the Egyptian pound against the dollar was the following proportion: 0.7: 1.
Coin issue
The initial material for minting was copper - in the period from 1834 to 1836 coins were issued, the face value of which was 1 and 5 pairs. Almost simultaneously with them, silver pairs with a face value of 10 and 20 units came into use.
With regard to piastres, a dual system also existed. 20 piastres, 1, 5, and 10 were made from silver. At the same time, coins in denominations of 1, 2, 10, 5, and 20 piastres were gold. Subsequently, the issuance of coins of one or another denomination underwent changes, restrictions were imposed on production, bronze coins of the fourth value were added, and the minting of gold coins kept pausing.
The next modernization of the monetary system
This period in the history of Egypt began in 1916 and lasted almost a year. The essence of global reorientation was at the beginning of minting a bronze coin, the face value of which was half a millimeter. At the same time, perforated copper-nickel coins with a denomination of 1 to 10 millimeters were put into circulation.
In the same period, the issuance of a gold coin began again, the value of which was 1 Egyptian pound.
Beginning in 1922, active coinage of gold coins began: along with two and five pounds of precious metal, 20 and 50 piastres were produced.
The famous hexagonal coin, made of silver in denomination of 2 piastres, was released for the first time relatively recently - in 1944. It is in this form that it has survived to the present day.
Features of the issue of banknotes
The first banknotes, the dignity of which amounted to 50 piastres, were issued in 1899. At that time, denominations of 10, 15, 50 and 100 Egyptian pounds also came into use. The revolutionary years of 1919-1917 in relation to coins affected the issue of paper currency in approximately the same way: then banknotes worth 25, 10, and finally 5 piastres were issued.
Egyptian pounds were issued in 1976 in denominations of 20 units, in one hundred pound notes were issued, in fifty-five pounds in 1933, and 2007 marked the beginning of the printing of two hundred pound notes.
Characteristics
Since Egypt is primarily a tourist country, it has a corresponding currency. Visitors to sunny Cairo or any other city should not worry about linguistic difficulties (after all, Arabic writing is not so simple for people far from this culture). On one side of the banknotes, the text is presented in Arabic letters (by the way, the Egyptians understand the expression “Arabic numerals” in a completely different way), and on the other is the English equivalent, understandable to most of the world's population.
On the obverse of banknotes, as a rule, a monument of Muslim architecture is depicted, while the reverse is decorated with original Egyptian, world-famous masterpieces of architecture.