Egypt Eyalet was an administrative division of the Ottoman Empire that existed from 1517 to 1867, with Cairo serving as its capital. The eyalet was created after the Ottomans conquered Egypt and Syria from the Mamelukes, but the real power in Egypt was not exercised by the Ottoman sultans, but by the entrenched mamluk elite. Egypt was semi-autonomous under the Mamelukes until the French First Republic occupied Egypt from 1798 to 1801 during the Egypt Campaign of the French Revolutionary Wars, and the Albanian military commander Muhammad Ali seized power from the Mamelukes in 1805. His dynasty's rule over Egypt was nominally under Ottoman vassalage, but Egypt held a high degree of independence. During the 1810s and 1830s, the Egyptians expanded into the Arabian Peninsula, and they also penetrated into the Levant during the 1830s during wars with the Ottomans. In 1867, the eyalet gained autonomy as the "Khedivate of Egypt".
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