Benha University

Benha University is a public university in the northern Egyptian city of Benha (also spelled Banha). The institution was founded in 1976 as a branch of Zagazig University, but became an independent entity in 2005. Benha University now has over 100,000 undergraduate and over 26,000 postgraduate students enrolled, with a an academic staff numbering 5,000.

Benha University has 15 faculties, including medicine; veterinary science; arts and law. Despite being a relatively young institution as a whole, Benha’s agricultural faculty is one of the oldest in Egypt, having been originally founded as a secondary school in 1911.

There are two separate engineering departments at the university, one based in Benha and another in Shubra, a district of the Egyptian capital of Cairo. Other university buildings can be found in Moshtohor, which is about 17 kilometres south of Benha. The university runs three hospitals and 146 scientific departments.

Located between Cairo and Alexandria, Benha is the capital of the Qalubiya governorate. Although it is not a tourist hotspot, the region once played an important part in ancient Egypt. The country’s most northerly pyramid was discovered near Benha by French emperor Napoleon’s Egyptian expedition in the late 18th Century. However, the exact location was lost from then until the late 1930s and, when it was rediscovered, the pyramid had mostly been destroyed.

Benha is well connected to Cairo and the train line between the two cities is currently being modernised to shorten the journey time. At present, it takes 40 minutes to get from Benha to the Egyptian capital.