Egypt is the most populous country in the Arab World and the third-most populous on the African continent (after Nigeria and Ethiopia). About 95%[1] of the country's 97 million people (2017)[2] live along the banks of the Nile and in the Nile Delta, which fans out north of Cairo; and along the Suez Canal. These regions are among the world's most densely populated, containing an average of over 1,540 per km², as compared to 96 persons per km² for the country as a whole.