Tahta

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Tahta is a city in the Sohag Governorate of Upper Egypt, located on the west bank of the Nile in a farming region. It covers about 3.7 square miles (9.7 square kilometers) and sits about 66 meters above sea level. In 2021, about 182,000 people lived there. The name Tahta may come from an ancient Egyptian phrase Ta-ho-ty. Nearby are the White Monastery and the Red Monastery. The city has a small but active Coptic Catholic community. A famous person from Tahta is Rifa'a al-Tahtawi (1801–1873), a reformist writer and thinker who studied in Paris in 1826 and worked as imam and chaplain for Egyptians sent to Western Europe by Muhammad Ali Pasha.