Great Pyramid of Giza

The Great Pyramid is in Egypt, a country in Africa.

It stands on high, rocky ground at the edge of the desert. It has four sloping sides that meet in a point at the top. It was built a very long time ago, as a tomb for a king.

The Great Pyramid stands on a rocky plateau at Giza, on the west bank of the Nile River in northern Egypt. It was built as the tomb of King Khufu, more than 4,500 years ago. Two more great pyramids stand beside it, built for Khufu's son Khafre and his grandson Menkaure.

Khufu's pyramid is the oldest and the largest of the three. Each side of its square base is about 230 meters long. When it was new, it was about 146.5 meters tall. Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities calls it the last surviving one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

The pyramids of Giza stand on a rocky plateau on the west bank of the Nile, part of UNESCO's "Memphis and its Necropolis – the Pyramid Fields from Giza to Dahshur" (inscribed 1979). Memphis was the capital of the Old Kingdom, and its necropolis holds more than 38 pyramids and over 9,000 rock-cut tombs.

The Great Pyramid was built for Khufu, second king of the 4th Dynasty, whom Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities dates to about 2589 to 2566 BCE; Khafre and Menkaure, his son and grandson, built the other two. Britannica gives Khufu's pyramid an average base side of 755.75 ft (230 m) and an original height of 481.4 ft (147 m); the ministry gives 146.5 m. UNESCO calls it the only surviving wonder of the ancient world, and the ministry says it was the tallest structure in the world for 3,800 years.

Inside the pyramid are long, narrow tunnels.

One tunnel leads up to a room made of hard granite stone. The king's big stone coffin is still in that room. Outside, smaller pyramids stand nearby.

The four sides of the pyramid face north, south, east and west, and slope up at an angle of almost 52 degrees. The way in is on the north side, about 18 meters above the ground.

Inside, a corridor slopes down to an unfinished room cut into the rock. Another passage climbs to a room called the Queen's Chamber and to the Grand Gallery, a great sloping hall 46 meters long. It leads to the King's Chamber, lined with granite, where Khufu's stone coffin, called a sarcophagus, can still be seen. Two large ships were found taken apart in pits on the pyramid's south side.

The sides rise at 51°52′ and are accurately oriented to the four cardinal points. From the north entrance, about 59 ft (18 m) up, a descending corridor cuts into the bedrock to an unfinished subterranean chamber. An ascending passage branches off to the Queen's Chamber and the Grand Gallery, a corbeled passage 151 ft (46 m) long, which leads to the granite-lined King's Chamber, where Khufu's sarcophagus remains. The ministry notes that having two chambers high within the masonry is a feature no other pyramid has.

Two narrow shafts run obliquely from the King's Chamber to the outside; their purpose is not known. Above the chamber, five compartments separated by massive granite slabs probably shield its ceiling from the weight above. Britannica notes that the internal walls and the few remaining casing stones have finer joints than any other ancient Egyptian masonry. Two large dismantled ships were found in pits on the south side.

Today, people come from all over the world to see the pyramids.

At night, lights shine on them. The city of Giza is close by.

Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities says the pyramids of Giza and the Great Sphinx are among the most popular places for tourists in the world, and they already were in Roman times. Visitors buy a ticket to enter the area, and a separate ticket to go inside the Great Pyramid.

The pyramids are now a little shorter than when they were built. Over hundreds of years, almost all the smooth outer casing stones were taken away, leaving the blocks underneath showing.

Stripped almost entirely of its white limestone casing, the Great Pyramid now stands about 451.4 ft (138 m) high, Britannica says; Khafre's pyramid keeps its casing only near the top. The site is protected under Egypt's antiquities law (No. 117 of 1983, amended in 2010), and UNESCO records ongoing work on a Giza Plateau Master Plan with Egypt's government bodies.

UNESCO also warns that development and urban growth press on the plateau, whose setting between the Nile and the desert could be worn away, and that a single management plan for the whole property is still needed. The ministry's area ticket does not include entry to the Great Pyramid itself, which is sold separately.