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What country is Port Said in?
Port Said is a modern industrial and port city located at the northern exit of the Suez Canal. The city is located on a headland. The northern edge of the city lies with its waterfront on the Mediterranean Sea, the eastern edge borders on the canal. South of the city is a large inland body of water: Lake Mansala. Today, more than half a million people live in the urban area. Besides Alexandria, Port Said is the most important port city in Egypt. Although there is no medieval old town and no monuments from the time of the pharaohs in Port Said, it offers a high standard of living to the inhabitants in a nationwide comparison.
This is reflected in the (relatively) well-maintained cityscape. There are numerous parks, gardens and wide avenues.Like Suez and Ismailia, Port Said owes its existence to the Suez Canal. Port Said was founded in 1859 and named after Muhammad Said Pasha (term from 1854 to 1863), a ruler of Egypt from the dynasty of Muhammad Ali. It was then that the construction program of the Suez Canal officially began under the leadership of the French entrepreneur Ferdinand de Lesseps (1805-1894), whose monument next to the old lighthouse was once a landmark of the city. But only the lighthouse still stands today.
The monument was destroyed by angry Egyptian nationalists during the Suez crisis of 1956 and the resulting bombings by the British and French. Without predecessors and without natural resources, the city had to be built literally out of nothing. All the infrastructure and supplies had to be brought from Cairo and from the delta. Initially, the workers for the construction of the canal and all those who were directly or indirectly involved in the canal project were accommodated here. This included, in addition to tens of thousands of workers recruited from the fields of the Nile Valley and Delta, engineers and experts from all over the world.
The city grew quickly. As soon as the canal was inaugurated, she was able to benefit economically from the unique location at the entrance of the canal. In the 20th century, Port Said grew into the second largest port city in Egypt. The growth was so rapid that even a sister city had to be founded to solve the urgent problem of overpopulation (see below). The transshipment point in the port area has benefited from its status as a free trade zone for more than three decades.
Many Egyptians come to Port Said for their duty-free shopping.Today, Port Said is also an important place for Egyptian tourism. While the foreign travelers mainly frolic on the Red Sea or visit the monuments of antiquity on the Nile, the wealthy Egyptians – and increasingly those of the middle class – travel to the Mediterranean during the hot summer months, preferably to Alexandria or Port Said. On the coast, the summer is more bearable because of the sea breeze, and there are beaches for swimming and waterfront promenades for strolling. As with all cities in the Canal region, this was the front and combat area during the military conflicts with Israel, especially during the Suez crisis in 1956, when British, French and Israeli aircraft bombed the city, and in the Yom Kippur War (1973), when the canal zone was recaptured under President Anwar al-Sadat.
Is Port Said in Asia or Africa?
Is Port Said in Sinai?
How far is Port Said from Cairo?
