Upper Egypt
Upper Egypt (Arabic: صعيد مصر Saʿīd Miṣr, shortened to الصعيد es-Ṣeʿīd<span style="margin="2px">/es-Ṣaʿīd pronounced [es.sˤe.ˈʕiːd, es.sˤɑ.ˈʕiːd], Coptic: ⲙⲁⲣⲏⲥ) is the strip of land, on both sides of the Nile valley, that extends between Nubia, and downriver (northwards) to Lower Egypt.
Geography
Upper Egypt is between the Cataracts of the Nile above modern-day Aswan, downriver (northwards) to the area between Dahshur and El-Ayait, which is south of modern-day Cairo. The northern (downriver) part of Upper Egypt, between Sohag and El-Ayait, is also known as Middle Egypt.
In Arabic, inhabitants of Upper Egypt are known as Sa'idis and they generally speak Sa'idi Arabic.
In Pharaonic times, Upper Egypt was known as Ta Shemau which means "the land of reeds." It was divided into twenty-two districts called nomes. The first nome was roughly where modern-day Aswan is and the twenty-second was at modern Atfih (Aphroditopolis), just to the south of Cairo.
History
Predynastic Egypt
The main city of predynastic Upper Egypt was Nekhen (Hierakonpolis in Greek), whose patron deity was the vulture goddess Nekhbet.