The map above simulates a 300-kiloton nuclear airburst over Cairo, Egypt — roughly the size of a modern deployed warhead. The coloured rings show the estimated fireball, the zones of heavy, moderate and light blast damage, the reach of the thermal flash and the ionizing-radiation dose. Drag the marker or change the weapon in the full simulator to explore other scenarios.
The metropolitan area is home to about 22 million people — the rings above are drawn to real scale over their homes.
The marker is on Tahrir Square. The 1.9 km zone of total destruction covers the Egyptian Museum, downtown Cairo, Garden City and Gezira Island's southern tip; the 4.7 km collapse ring reaches Zamalek, the Citadel's approaches, Sayyida Zeinab, Dokki and the Cairo Tower. Third-degree burns extend to about 7.5 km over Islamic Cairo and Khan el-Khalili, Shubra, Mohandessin and Old Cairo; the 14.5 km ring of broken windows covers Heliopolis's edge, Nasr City, Giza's centre, Maadi and the Giza pyramids' approach.
Greater Cairo has about 22 million inhabitants and the Nile-side districts are extraordinarily dense — the inner city averages more than 30,000 people per square kilometre. The Nile valley is flat; the Mokattam hills to the east are the only feature tall enough to shadow anything. Egypt has no nuclear weapons. The casualty estimate on this page uses the GHS population grid described on the methodology page.
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