Suez Canal

 

The Suez Canal is a man-made sea-level waterway in Egypt that connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea via the Suez Isthmus, dividing Africa and Asia.  

Ferdinand de Lesseps established the Suez Canal Company in 1858 with the sole objective of constructing the canal. The canal was built between 1859 and 1869 and was overseen by the Ottoman Empire's regional government.

On November 17, 1869, the canal was officially opened. It provides vessels with a direct route between the North Atlantic and northern Indian oceans via the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, avoiding the South Atlantic and southern Indian oceans and cutting the journey time from the Arabian Sea to London from 10 days to 8 days at 24 knots (44 km/h; 28 mph). The Suez Canal runs from Port Said's northern terminus to Port Tewfik's southern terminus in the city of Suez. Its total length, including its northern and southern access channels, is 193.30 km (120.11 mi). In 2020, about 18,500 vessels will have passed through the canal (an average of 51.5 per day).

While the canal was held by the Egyptian government, the concessionary firm that ran it was controlled by European shareholders, chiefly British and French, until July 1956, when President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized it, sparking the Suez Crisis of October–November 1956. Egypt's state-owned Suez Canal Authority (SCA) operates and maintains the canal. It may be used "in time of war as in time of peace, by every vessel of commerce or of war, without distinction of flag," according to the Constantinople Convention. Nonetheless, as a naval short-cut and choke point, the canal has played a significant military strategic role. The Suez Canal is of significant relevance to naval forces with coastlines and bases on both the Mediterranean and Red Seas (Egypt and Israel). Egypt closed the Suez canal on June 5, 1967, at the start of the Six-Day War, and it stayed closed for exactly eight years, reopening on June 5, 1975.