SHUBRA AL-KHAYMAH

also spelled Shubra El-kheima, northern suburb of Cairo, in al-Qalyubiyah muhafazah (governorate), on the east bank of the Nile, Lower Egypt. It was formerly a market town supplying Cairo with agricultural produce from the rich, alluvial delta area. In the 1820s Muhammad 'Ali, the Ottoman viceroy of Egypt, built the country's first European-type factories and schools in Shubra al-Khaymah, and it developed as an industrial centre. Industries now include cotton ginning and the production of textiles, industrial specialty glass, and ceramics. Shubra al-Khaymah is the site of the Cairo Polytechnic Institute (1961), and a teachers' college now occupies the old viceroy's palace. The town is on the CairoAlexandria superhighway and lies just west of the southern terminus of the Tur'at al-Isma'iliyah (Ismailia Canal), which links the Suez Canal with the Nile River. Pop. (1983 est.) 486,400.