Port Said

Port Said ( , , ) is a port city that lies in northeast Egypt extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, straddling the west bank of the northern mouth of the Suez Canal. The city is the capital of the Port Said Governorate and forms the majority of the governorate, comprising seven of the governorate's eight administrative regions. In 2024, it had a population of 790,000 people.

The city was established in 1859 during the building of the Suez Canal. There are numerous old houses with grand balconies on all floors, giving the city a distinctive look. Port Said's twin city is Port Fuad, which lies on the eastern bank of the Suez Canal. The two cities coexist, to the extent that there is hardly any town centre in Port Fuad. The cities are connected by free ferries running all through the day, and together they form a metropolitan area with over a million residents that extends both on the African and the Asian sides of the Suez Canal.

Port Said has acted as a global city since its establishment, flourishing particularly during the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century. It was inhabited by various nationalities and religions, mostly from Mediterranean countries, and they coexisted in tolerance, forming a cosmopolitan community. Referring to this fact, Rudyard Kipling once said, "If you truly wish to find someone you have known and who travels, there are two points on the globe you have but to sit and wait, sooner or later your man will come there: the docks of London and Port Said".Port-Saïd : Architectures XIXe-XXe siècles Port Said is an important city in Egypt for trade and business due to its location on the Suez Canal and Mediterranean coast.

Name

The name of Port Said first appeared in 1855. It was chosen by an international committee composed of the UK, France, the Russian Empire, Austria, Spain and Piedmont. It is a compound name which composed of two parts: the French word port (marine harbour) and Said (the name of the ruler of Egypt at that time), who granted Ferdinand de Lesseps the concession to dig the Suez Canal. Urbanized residents pronounce the name or , while unurbanized residents pronounce it .

In Ancient Greek, the city was called ().

History

Founding (1859)

Port Said was founded by Sa'id of Egypt on Easter Monday, 25 April 1859, when Ferdinand de Lesseps gave the first symbolic swing of the pickaxe to signal the beginning of construction. The first problem encountered was the difficulty for ships to drop anchor nearby. Luckily, a single rocky outcrop flush with the shoreline was discovered a few hundred meters away. Equipped with a wooden wharf, it served as a mooring berth for the boats. Soon after, a wooden jetty was built, connecting the departure islet, as it quickly became known, to the beach. This rock could be considered the heart of the developing city, and it was on this highly symbolic site, forty years later, that a monument to de Lesseps was erected.

There were no local resources here. Everything Port Said needed had to be imported: wood, stone, supplies, machinery, equipment, housing, food and even water. Giant water storage containers were erected to supply fresh water until the Sweet Water Canal could be completed. One of the most pressing problems was the lack of stone. Early buildings were often imported in kit form and made great use of wood. A newly developed technique was used to construct the jetties called conglomerate concrete or "Beton Coignet", which was named after its inventor François Coignet. Blocks of concrete were sunk into the sea to be the foundations of the jetties. Still more innovative was the use of the same concrete for the lighthouse of Port Said, the only original building still standing in Port Said. In 1859 the first 150 laborers camped in tents around a wooden shed. A year later, the number of inhabitants had risen to 2000 – with the European contingent housed in wooden bungalows imported from northern Europe. By 1869, when the canal opened, the permanent population had reached 10,000. The European district, clustered around the waterfront, was separated from the Arab district, Gemalia, to the west, by a wide strip of sandy beach where a tongue of Lake Manzala reached towards the sea. This inlet soon dried out and was replaced by buildings; over time there was no division between the European and Arab quarters.

Since its establishment, Port Said played a significant role in Egyptian history. The British entered Egypt through the city in 1882, starting their occupation of Egypt.

Thriving international port and city (1902–1945)

At the start of the twentieth century, two things happened to change Port Said: in 1902, Egyptian cotton from Mataria started to be exported via Port Said; and in 1904 a standard gauge railway opened to Cairo. The result was to attract a large commercial community and to raise its social status. In particular a sizable Greek community grew up. In 1907, the quickly growing city had about 50,000 inhabitants, among whom were 11,000 Europeans "of all nations". During the First World War, Port Said became home to an important Allied hospital.Leeds, West Yorkshire Archive Service,Letter from Cornforth to Leeds Town Clerk Mitchell, 9 December 1918. Due to the strategic location of Port Said intersecting Europe, Africa and Asia, thousands of men were sent to this hospital. This included soldiers wounded as a result of the Gallipoli campaign in 1915. Following the end of the World War I, the directors of the Suez Canal Company decided to create a new city on the Asian bank, building 300 houses for its labourers and functionaries. Port Fouad was designed by the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The houses follow the French model. The new city was founded in December 1926.

In 1936 a treaty was signed between the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Egypt called the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936. It stipulated the British pledge to withdraw all their troops from Egypt, except those necessary to protect the Suez Canal and its surroundings.

Revolution, end of British occupation (1946–present) Following World War II, Egypt denounced the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936, leading to skirmishes with British troops guarding the Suez Canal in 1951.

The Egyptian Revolution of 1952 led to the toppling of King Farouk. On 26 July 1956, President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal Company. The nationalisation escalated tensions with Britain and France, who colluded with Israel to invade Egypt, the invasion known in Egypt as the tripartite aggression or the Suez Crisis. On 6 November 1956, British troops violently landed in Port Said while firing on the Egyptian military. Port Said next was bombed by the British, to terrorise the civilians, of whom hundreds died. There was also heavy fighting in the streets with again many civilian casualties, and the resulting fires destroyed much of the city.

The withdrawal of the last soldier of foreign troops was on 23 December 1956. Since then, this day was chosen as Port Said's national day. It is widely celebrated annually in Port Said. The French-speaking European community had begun to emigrate to Europe, Australia, South Africa and elsewhere in 1946 and most of the remainder left Egypt in the wake of the Suez Crisis, paralleling the contemporary exodus of French-speaking Europeans from Tunisia. Most of the Greek community was also expelled or left the town under the rule of Gamal Abdel Nasser.A Presence without a Narrative: The Greeks in Egypt, 1961–1976 https://journals.openedition.org/remmm/12117?lang=en

After the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, also called the Six-Day War, the Suez Canal was closed by an Egyptian blockade until 5 June 1975, and the residents of Port Said were evacuated by the Egyptian government to prepare for the Yom Kippur War (1973). The city was re-inhabited after the war and the reopening of the Canal. In 1976, Port Said was declared a duty-free port, attracting people from all over Egypt. Now the population of the city is 794,720.Port Said Main Features https://www.portsaid.gov.eg/StaticContent/1

Economy

Port Said has been ranked the second among the Egyptian cities according to the Human Development Index in 2009 and 2010; the economic base of the city is fishing and industries, like chemicals, ultra-processed food, and cigarettes. Port Said is also an important harbour for exports of Egyptian products like cotton and rice, and additionally a fueling station for ships that pass through the Suez Canal. It thrives on being a duty-free port, as well as a tourist resort especially during summer. It is home to the Lighthouse of Port Said (the first building in the world built from reinforced concrete).

Due to its excellent geographic location, Port Said is designed to attract logistics start ups along with import and export businesses.Company List ›› List of Companies in Egypt ›› Companies in Port Said www.listcompany.org, accessed 10 April 2021

In 2014, the city witnessed the construction of the New Suez Canal, led by the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

East Port Said Industrial Zone

The government provides a number of incentives to investors in the scheme including zero tax and duties on tools, machines and raw materials related to the production of goods for export.

Tourism

Port Said is a main summer resort and tourist attraction, due to its public and private beaches, cosmopolitan heritage, museums, and duty-free port, beside the other landmarks like Port Said Lighthouse, Port Said Martyrs Memorial that has the shape of the Pharaonic ancient obelisks, and the building of the Suez Canal Authority headquarters in Port Said. Also, Tennis island situated in lake Manzaleh is a destination that attracts tourists to enjoy visiting this ancient Islamic city which was demolished during the crusades.

Ashtoum el-Gamil is a protectorate which is located 7 km west of Port Said on the Port Said-Damietta coastal road. It is also where Lake Manzalah connects with the Mediterranean Sea. (In front of the mouth of the Lake is Tanees Island. The entire area is a very important place for birds.) Its area is 180 km2 and was established in 1988. Its main objective is to conserve the migratory birds. It is managed by the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency.

Nearby to the El Gameel area, there will be a real estate mixed use project named Downtown Portsaid. The project will cater to both residents and tourists as well as investors in the area, and is anticipated to be an attraction hotspot.

Geography

Climate Port Said has a hot desert climate (BWh) according to Köppen climate classification, but blowing winds from the Mediterranean Sea greatly moderates the temperatures. This is typical of the northern coast of Egypt, making its summers moderately hot and humid while its winters mild and moderately wet when sleet and hail are also common, yet less common than in Alexandria because Port Said is drier. January and February are the coolest months while the hottest are July and August.

The record high temperature was , recorded on 20 June 1988, while the record low temperature was , recorded on 25 December 1979.

Port Said, Kosseir, Ras El Bar, Baltim, Damietta and Alexandria have the least temperature variation in Egypt. Additionally, Mersa Matruh and Port Said have the coolest summer days of any other cities or resorts, although not significantly cooler than other northern coastal places.

Municipal divisions and demographics

Modern Port Said is divided into seven districts: South District Flowers District El-Dawahi District: East District El-Manakh District El-Arab District West District

Port Said's districts are further subdivided in to eight qism (police ward) which had a total estimated population as of January 2023 of 680,375 people: +Anglicized nameNative nameEgyptian transliterationPopulation