5 facts about Maadi’s Petrified Forest Protectorate

CAIRO –27 July 2017: The Cabinet of Ministers decided recently to share the costs of developing the protectorate with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Communities to turn the protectorate into an open geological museum to be an open space for New Cairo’s residents with the cost of LE 50 million ($2.8 million).


Maadi Forest Entrance - Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Roland Unger

Petrified Forest Protectorate is located around 18 kilometers east of Maadi in Cairo, specifically in New Cairo city in the Fifth Settlement, north of Qatamya/ Ain Sokhna. It was declared a protectorate according to the prime minister’s declaration number 944 for the year 1989.

Here are five facts you probably did not know about the Petrified Forest’s Protectorate:

1- It stretches over around seven square kilometers.

2- It is considered a unique geological site unlike anything else on Earth.

3- It contains petrified trees in the shapes of stone pieces.

4- Most of its areas belong to the Oligocene geologic time period from 32 to 35 million years old.

5- It has holes that vary in depth between 25 to 40 thousand meters.


Maadi Forest Wood 1 - Wikimedia Commons/Roland Unger