National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics

The National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics, known as NRIAG, is an Egyptian research institute at Helwan, Cairo, with a long history of astronomical and geophysical observation. It was established in 1839 as a royal observatory at Bollak, moved to Abbasia in 1868 and then to its present site at Helwan in 1903, which makes it the oldest research institute in North Africa. Its departments cover astronomy, geomagnetism and geoelectricity, geodynamics, solar and space science and seismology, and it runs the Egyptian National Seismic Network. Its astronomy department includes the Kottamia Astronomical Observatory, which houses the 1.9-meter telescope, the largest in the Arab world.