The rapid urban expansion of the Greater Cairo region from 2004 to 2010 is computed by performing a linear analysis of four land use maps obtained after classifying SAR data using a non-parametric supervised classifier based on artificial neural network with simple design. The availability of SAR data made it possible to produce land use maps for 5 out of the 7 years, obtaining information about the evolution of the morphology of the city with a temporal resolution of nearly 1 year. Urban area has grown with 150% during the period under study. During that period, part of the new urban development took place within the Nile floodplain, despite the effort of the Egyptian government to restrict new developments to the Western and Eastern desert plateaus. ; status: published