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Historically, the construction of the canal was preceded by cutting a small fresh-water canal called Sweet Water Canal from the Nile delta along Wadi Tumilat to the future canal, with a southern branch to Suez and a northern branch to Port Said.
- Overview
- Geology
- Physiography
The Suez Canal is a human-made waterway that cuts north-south across the Isthmus of Suez in Egypt. The Suez Canal connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea, making it the shortest maritime route to Asia from Europe. Since its completion in 1869, it has become one of the world’s most heavily used shipping lanes.
Why is the Suez Canal important?
The Suez Canal is important because it is the shortest maritime route from Europe to Asia. Prior to its construction, ships headed toward Asia had to embark on an arduous journey around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa. Because of its strategic location, the canal is both heavily used and heavily protected.
How has the Suez Canal changed throughout history?
Various forms of what is today the Suez Canal existed in Egypt between 1850 BCE and 775 CE, although primarily to facilitate trade between the Nile River Delta and the Red Sea. Between 1859 and 1869, Egyptian khedive Saʿīd Pasha partnered with France’s Suez Canal Company to build the present canal connecting the Mediterranean and Red seas.
How was the Suez Canal’s construction paid for?
The Isthmus of Suez, the sole land bridge between the continents of Africa and Asia, is of relatively recent geologic origin. Both continents once formed a single large continental mass, but during the Paleogene and Neogene periods (about 66 to 2.6 million years ago) the great fault structures of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aqaba developed, with the op...
Topographically, the Isthmus of Suez is not uniform. There are three shallow water-filled depressions: Lake Manzala, Lake Timsah, and the Bitter Lakes; though distinguished as Great and Little, the Bitter Lakes form one continuous sheet of water. A number of more-resistant bands of limestone and gypsum obtrude in the south of the isthmus, and another significant feature is a narrow valley leading from Lake Timsah southwestward toward the middle Nile delta and Cairo. The isthmus is composed of marine sediments, coarser sands, and gravels deposited in the early periods of abundant rainfall, Nile alluvium (especially to the north), and windblown sands.
When first opened in 1869, the canal consisted of a channel barely 8 metres (26 feet) deep, 22 metres (72 feet) wide at the bottom, and 61 to 91 metres (200 to 300 feet) wide at the surface. To allow ships to pass each other, passing bays were built every 8 to 10 km (5 to 6 miles). Construction involved the excavation and dredging of 74 million cubic metres (97 million cubic yards) of sediments. Between 1870 and 1884 some 3,000 groundings of ships occurred because of the narrowness and tortuousness of the channel. Major improvements began in 1876, and, after successive widenings and deepenings, the canal by the 1960s had a minimum width of 55 metres (179 feet) at a depth of 10 metres (33 feet) along its banks and a channel depth of 12 metres (40 feet) at low tide. Also in that period, passing bays were greatly enlarged and new bays constructed, bypasses were made in the Bitter Lakes and at Al-Ballāḥ, stone or cement cladding and steel piling for bank protection were almost entirely completed in areas particularly liable to erosion, tanker anchorages were deepened in Lake Timsah, and new berths were dug at Port Said to facilitate the grouping of ships in convoy.
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Feb 16, 2018 · Suez Canal Opens. Ismail Pasha, Khedive of Egypt and the Sudan, formally opened the Suez Canal on November 17, 1869. Officially, the first ship to navigate through the canal was the imperial...
The first canal in the region is thought to have been dug about 1850 bce, when an irrigation channel navigable at flood period was constructed into the Wadi Tumelat (Al-Ṭumaylāt), a dry river valley east of the Nile delta. Known as the Canal of the Pharaohs, that channel was extended by the Ptolemies via the Bitter Lakes as far as the Red Sea.
1. Suez Canal: idea and early beginnings. It is a well-established historical fact that the first one to come up with the idea of connecting the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, via the Nile and its branches, was the Egyptian Pharaoh Senausert III of the Twelfth Dynasty.
Mar 29, 2021 · The History Of The Suez Canal. March 29, 20214:23 PM ET. Heard on All Things Considered. 4-Minute Listen. Playlist. NPR's Ari Shapiro speaks with Zachary Karabell, author of Parting the...
Sep 9, 2019 · It officially opened in November 1869. Construction History. Although the Suez Canal wasn't officially completed until 1869, there is a long history of interest in connecting both the Nile River in Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea.
