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Published: November 14th 2006
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Suez
Suez, As Suways - Egypt
Nov 18, 1993
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City official name :Suez
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Founded date : *
Location :As Suways Province
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Elavation :? ft (? m)
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Area :Approximately ? square miles (? km²).
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Facts :Suez (Arabic: السويس as-Suways) is a port town (population ca. 497,000) in northeastern Egypt, located on the Gulf of Suez, near the mouth of the Suez Canal. having the same boundaries as Suez Governorate, at the northern extremity of the Gulf of Suez, near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal. It has two harbors, Port Ibrahim and Port Tawfiq, and extensive port facilities. Rail lines and highways connect the city with Cairo and Port Said. Suez has a petrochemical plant, and its oil refineries have pipelines carrying the finished product to Cairo. Suez is a way station for Muslim pilgrims traveling to and from Mecca. In the 7th century a town near the site of present-day Suez was the eastern terminus of a canal linking the Nile River and the Red Sea. In the 16th century Suez was a Turkish naval station. Its importance as a port increased after the Suez Canal opened in 1859. The city was virtually destroyed during battles in the late 1960s
Suez
Suez, As Suways - Egypt
and early 1970s between Egyptian and Israeli forces occupying the Sinai Peninsula. The town was deserted following the Second Arab-Israeli War in 1967. Reconstruction of Suez began soon after Egypt reopened the Suez Canal, following the October 1973 war with Israel.
The Suez Canal
The Suez Canal (Arabic: قناة السويس, translit: Qanā al-Suways, French: Le Canal de Suez), west of the Sinai Peninsula, is a 163-km-long (101 miles) and, at its narrowest point, 300-m-wide (984 ft) maritime canal in Egypt between Port Said (Būr Sa'īd) on the Mediterranean Sea, and Suez (al-Suways) on the Red Sea.
The canal allows two-way north to south water transport between Europe and Asia without circumnavigation of Africa. Before the opening of the canal in 1869, goods were sometimes transported by being offloaded from ships and carried overland between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.
The canal comprises two parts, north and south of the Great Bitter Lake, linking the Mediterranean Sea to the Gulf of Suez on the Red Sea.
The canal has no locks because there are no hills to climb. The canal allows the passage of ships of up to some 150,000 tons displacement, with cargo. It
Suez
Suez, As Suways - Egypt
permits ships of up to 16 m (53 ft) draft to pass, and improvements are planned to increase this to 22 m (72 ft) by 2010 to allow supertanker passage. Presently, supertankers can offload part of their cargo onto a canal-owned boat and reload at the other end of the canal. There is one shipping lane with several passing areas. Three convoys transit the canal on a typical day, two southbound and one northbound. The first southbound convoy enters the canal in the early morning hours and proceeds to the Great Bitter Lake, where the ships anchor out of the fairway and await the passage of the northbound convoy. The northbound convoy passes the second southbound convoy, which moors to the canal bank in a by-pass, in the vicinity of El Qantara. Egypt's Suez Canal Authority (SCA) reported that in 2003 17,224 ships passed through the canal. The canal averages about 8%!o(MISSING)f the world shipping traffic. The passage takes between 11 and 16 hours at a speed of around 8 knots. The low speed helps prevent erosion of the canal banks by ship's wakes.
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