Helwan is a suburban district in the Southern Area of Cairo, Egypt. The area of Helwan witnessed prehistoric, ancient Egyptian, Roman and Muslim era activity. More recently it was designated as a city until as late as the 1960s, before it became contiguous with the city of Cairo and was incorporated as a district. For a brief period between April 2008 and April 2011 it was redesignated as a city, and served as the capital of the now defunct Helwan Governorate that was split from Cairo and Giza governorates, before being re-incorporated back into them. The kism of Helwan had a population of 521,239 in the 2017 census.

Cairo Governorate is one of the 27 governorates of Egypt. It is formed of the city of Cairo, both the national capital of Egypt and the governorate's, in addition to five satellite cities: the New Administrative Capital - set to become the seat of national government, New Cairo, Shourok, Badr, Capital Gardens, and 15th of May. These cities form almost half of the Greater Cairo metropolitan area by population.