Aswan<\/a>. The Gilf Kebir plateau and the Great Sand Sea occupy the empty south-west.<\/p>\nDemographics<\/h2>\n
The 2017 census recorded 241,247 residents. The mid-2023 estimate of 266,926 is 11 per cent higher. Growth trails the Nile valley because little land can be opened without new wells. Kharga and Dakhla together hold three quarters of the population. Density is 0.6 people per km\u00b2, the lowest in Egypt by a wide margin. The figure means little, because outside the oases the desert is empty.<\/p>\n
Many residents are descended from families resettled from Upper Egypt after 1959. Older oasis families in Dakhla and Farafra speak a distinct dialect with vocabulary not heard in the valley.<\/p>\n
Economy and Local Life<\/h2>\n
Everything depends on groundwater from the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer, drawn by deep wells. Dates are the signature crop, with olives, wheat, alfalfa and rice grown under pivot irrigation. Dakhla and Kharga both run date-packing plants.<\/p>\n
Phosphate mining on the Abu Tartur plateau, between Kharga and Dakhla, is the main extractive industry and ships ore east by rail. The East Uweinat scheme in the far south-west is the largest reclamation project here. It farms deep groundwater a few hundred kilometres from any town. Tourism is small but steady: the White Desert, the hot springs, and the temples at Hibis and Dush.<\/p>\n
History<\/h2>\n
The oases have been settled since prehistory. Rock art in the Gilf Kebir, including the Cave of Swimmers, was painted when the desert still held seasonal water. Balat was an Old Kingdom administrative centre by the Sixth Dynasty, around 2300 BC. The Temple of Hibis at Kharga, built under Darius I in the sixth century BC, is the best-preserved Persian-period temple in Egypt. The Bagawat necropolis beside it holds several hundred mudbrick chapels from the fourth to sixth centuries, among the oldest Christian cemeteries anywhere.<\/p>\n
Kharga stood on the Darb al-Arbain, the forty-day caravan road from Darfur to Asyut. Roman forts along that route survive at Dush and Qasr al-Ghueita. The modern name dates to 1958, when the government launched the New Valley Project to open a second inhabited valley in the desert. The governorate was created in 1958 and settlers arrived through the 1960s.<\/p>\n
Getting There<\/h2>\n
The usual approach is the paved desert road west from Asyut, about 230 kilometres and three hours to Kharga. From Cairo the drive is roughly 600 kilometres by way of Asyut, or a longer northern route through Bahariya to Farafra. Kharga Airport handles limited domestic service. Buses run daily from Cairo and Asyut to Kharga and Dakhla, and less often to Farafra. There is no passenger rail service; the line from Qena to Kharga carries phosphate.<\/p>\n
FAQ<\/h2>\nWhat is the capital of New Valley Governorate?<\/h3>\n
Kharga, in the Kharga depression. The town had about 83,000 residents in the mid-2023 estimate.<\/p>\n
How many towns and villages are in New Valley?<\/h3>\n
This page lists 55 mapped settlements across the four oases. The number is small because habitation is limited to places with usable groundwater.<\/p>\n
What is the population of New Valley Governorate?<\/h3>\n
266,926 in the mid-2023 CAPMAS estimate, up from 241,247 at the 2017 census.<\/p>\n
Why is New Valley the largest governorate in Egypt?<\/h3>\n
Its boundaries take in the whole south-western desert to the Libyan and Sudanese borders, 440,098 km\u00b2 in all, about 44 per cent of Egypt.<\/p>\n
How far is Kharga from Asyut?<\/h3>\n
About 230 kilometres by the paved desert road, roughly three hours by car.<\/p>\n
What is New Valley known for?<\/h3>\n
Date farming on deep groundwater, phosphate mining at Abu Tartur, the White Desert National Park, and the Temple of Hibis at Kharga.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Valley Governorate (Arabic: \u0645\u062d\u0627\u0641\u0638\u0629 \u0627\u0644\u0648\u0627\u062f\u064a \u0627\u0644\u062c\u062f\u064a\u062f), also written El Wadi El Gedid, covers the whole of Egypt’s south-western desert. At 440,098 km\u00b2 it is the largest governorate in Egypt, about 44 per cent of the country’s land area. It holds only 266,926 people (mid-2023 CAPMAS estimate). The capital is Kharga, and every settlement sits […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"New Valley Governorate: Towns, Villages & Population","_seopress_titles_desc":"New Valley Governorate, Egypt: 55 towns and villages across Kharga, Dakhla, Balat, Farafra and Baris, plus population (266,926, 2023), area and travel details.","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-egypt","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/egypt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/egypt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/egypt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/egypt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/egypt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/egypt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109,"href":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/egypt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions\/109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/egypt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/egypt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/egypt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}