Suez Canal

I

Introduction

Suez Canal, artificial waterway running north to south across the Isthmus of Suez in north-eastern Egypt; it connects Port Said on the Mediterranean Sea with the Gulf of Suez, an arm of the Red Sea. The canal provides a shortcut for ships operating between European or American ports and ports located in southern Asia, eastern Africa, and Oceania, by avoiding the need to sail around Africa. Strategically and economically it is one of the most important waterways in the world.

II

Physical Description

The Suez Canal is about 163 km (101 mi) long. The minimum bottom width of the channel is 60 m (197 ft) and ships of 20 m (64 ft) draft can make the transit. The canal can accommodate ships as large as 150,000 tons fully loaded. It has no locks, since it connects two points at sea level, with no high ground in between, so transit time is only about 15 hours. The canal utilizes three bodies of water—Lake Manzala, Lake Timsah, and the Bitter Lakes (the latter is actually one continuous body of water)—and is not the shortest distance across the isthmus. Most of the canal is limited to a single lane of traffic, but several passing bays exist, and two-lane bypasses are located in the Bitter Lakes and between Al-Qantarah and Ismailia. A railway on the west bank runs parallel to the canal for its entire distance.

III

History

A

The First Canal

The first canal between the Nile delta and the Red Sea was excavated in about the 13th century bc, possibly at the command of an Egyptian ruler, either Seti I or Ramses II. For long periods of time during the next 1,000 years the canal was neglected, but several rulers at various times had it re-excavated or modified. All efforts to maintain it in good condition were finally abandoned in the 8th century ad. From time to time thereafter various proposals to dig a canal across the Isthmus of Suez were advanced, but no action was taken.

B

Construction

In 1854 the French diplomat and engineer Vicomte Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps succeeded in enlisting the interest of the Egyptian viceroy Said Pasha in the project. In 1858 La Compagnie Universelle du Canal Maritime de Suez (Universal Company of the Maritime Suez Canal) was formed with authority to cut a canal and to operate it for 99 years, after which ownership would revert to the Egyptian government. The company was originally a private Egyptian concern, its stock owned chiefly by French and Egyptian interests. In 1875 the British government purchased Egypt's shares.

Excavation of the canal was begun on April 25, 1859, and the canal was opened to navigation on November 17, 1869. The cost totalled about £65 million in modern values. About three times that sum was spent on later repairs and improvements. The original dimensions were a bottom width of 22 m (72 ft), a surface width of 58 m (190 ft), and a depth of 8 m (26 ft).