Luxor is a city in Egypt, on the east bank of the River Nile. People go there to see huge ancient temples — holy buildings of stone — and to visit the tombs and sites of old Thebes nearby. It is one of Egypt’s great tourist cities, and the name itself comes from Arabic al-Uqsur, a word tied to palaces or great buildings, which fits what visitors come to look at.

Older learner books often mention a dark day in 1997, when attackers killed 59 tourists in Luxor. That happened, and it is part of why the city was once in the news for fear as well as for temples. Though actually, the place students meet in travel writing now is again a busy visitor city: hot, full of guides and boats on the Nile, famous for Karnak and Luxor Temple. The Valley of the Kings, where many kings were buried, sits across the river on the west side — so “Luxor” in a holiday plan often means the whole area, not only the streets of the east-bank city.