SUEZ CANAL

The Suez Canal. Arabic Qanat as-Suways, sea-level waterway running north-south across the Isthmus of Suez in Egypt to connect the Mediterranean and the Red seas. The canal separates the African continent from Asia, and it provides the shortest maritime route between Europe and the lands lying around the Indian and western Pacific oceans. It is one of the world's most heavily used shipping lanes. The canal extends 101 miles (163 kilometres) between Port Said (Bur Sa'id) in the north and Suez in the south, with dredged approach channels north of Port Said into the Mediterranean, and south of Suez. The canal does not take the shortest route across the isthmus, which is only 75 miles, but utilizes several lakes, from north to south, Lake Manzala (Buhayrat al-Manzilah), Lake Timsah (Buhayrat at-Timsah), and the Bitter Lakes: Great Bitter Lake (Al-Buhayrah al-Murrah al-Kubra) and Little Bitter Lake (Al-Buhayrah al-Murrah as-Sughra). The Suez Canal is an open cut, without locks, and, though extensive straight lengths occur, there are eight major bends. To the west of the canal is the low-lying delta of the Nile River; to the east is the higher, rugged, and arid Sinai Peninsula. Prior to construction of the canal (completed in 1869), the only important settlement was Suez, which in 1859 had 3,000 to 4,000 inhabitants. The rest of the towns along its banks have grown up since, with the possible exception of Al-Qantarah. Cargo ship in the Suez Canal near Ismailia, Egypt. Arabic Qanat As-suways, sea-level waterway running north to south across the Isthmus of Suez in Egypt and separating the African continent from Asia. The Suez Canal connects the Mediterranean and Red seas and allows ships to sail directly between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, rather than rounding Africa via the Cape of Good Hope. The canal extends 100 miles (160 km) from Port Said (Bur Sa'id) on the Mediterranean to the Gulf of Suez in the south, utilizing three intervening lakes, Lake Manzala (Buhayrat al-Manzilah), Lake Timsah (Buhayrat at-Timsah), and the Bitter Lakes (al-Buhayrah al-Murrah). To the west of the canal is the low-lying delta of the Nile River, and to the east is the higher, rugged, and arid Sinai Peninsula. The Suez Canal was built by the French-owned Suez Canal Company under the leadership of Ferdinand de Lesseps and was completed in 1869 after 11 years' construction. Its ownership remained largely in French and British hands for the next 80 years. In 1956, however, the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the canal, which was closed twice by the Arab-Israeli Wars, first in the Suez Crisis of 195657 and then in 196775 as a result of the Six-Day War (1967). The Suez Canal originally consisted of a channel barely 26 feet (8 m) deep, 72 feet (22 m) wide at the bottom, and 190 feet (58 m) wide at the surface. After successive widenings and deepenings, the canal had a minimum width of 179 feet (55 m) and an uninterrupted depth of almost 40 feet (12 m) at low tide by 1963. The canal is one of the world's most heavily used shipping lanes, with an average of 55 ships using it daily in the late 20th century. Its most important traffic is the tankers carrying petroleum northward from the oilfields of the Persian Gulf to western and central Europe. Coal, ores and metals, and other bulk commodities are also transported northward, while the main southbound traffic consists of cement, fertilizers, fabricated metals, and cereal grains, as well as empty tankers returning to the Persian Gulf. The largest oil tankers (supertankers) are unable to use the canal when fully laden and must round the Cape of Good Hope instead. Additional reading Studies of the Suez Canal include R.E.B. Duff, 100 Years of the Suez Canal (1969); D.A. Farnie, East and West of Suez: The Suez Canal in History, 18541956 (1969), which traces events from the concession to the nationalization of the canal company; Lord Kinross (Patrick Balfour, Baron Kinross), Between Two Seas: The Creation of the Suez Canal (1968); John Marlowe, World Ditch: The Making of the Suez Canal (also published as The Making of the Suez Canal, 1964), a well-documented account from the canal's inception to the British occupation of Egypt in 1882; Hugh J. Schonfield, The Suez Canal in Peace and War, 18691969, rev. ed. (1969), a brief, general survey; Andr Siegfried, Suez and Panama (1940; originally published in French, 1940); and Arnold T. Wilson, The Suez Canal: Its Past, Present, and Future (1933, reprinted 1977), a classic evaluation of the British interest in the canal. Charles Gordon Smith History Construction The first canal in the region seems to have been dug about 1850 BC, when an irrigation channel navigable at flood period was constructed into the Wadi Tumelat (at-Tumaylat). This channel was extended by the Ptolemies via the Bitter Lakes as far as the Red Sea. From the region of Lake Timsah a northward arm appears to have reached a former branch of the Nile. Extended under the Romans (who called it Trajan's Canal), neglected by the Byzantines, and reopened by the early Arabs, this canal was deliberately filled in by the 'Abbasid caliphs for military reasons in AD 775. Throughout, the reason for these changes appears to have been to facilitate trade from the delta lands to the Red Sea rather than to provide a passage to the Mediterranean. Among the Venetians in the 15th century and the French in the 17th and 18th centuries were writers who speculated upon the possibility of making a canal through the isthmus. A canal there would make it possible for ships of their nations to sail directly from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean and so dispute the monopoly of the East Indian trade that had been won first by the Portuguese, then by the Dutch, and finally by the English, all of whom used the route around the Cape of Good Hope. These schemes came to nothing. It was not until the French occupation of Egypt (17981801) that the first survey was made across the isthmus. Napoleon personally investigated the remains of the ancient canal. J.M. Le Pre, his chief lines-of-communication engineer, erroneously calculated that the level of the Red Sea was 33 feet above that of the Mediterranean, and, therefore, locks would be needed. Considering the adverse conditions under which the French surveyors worked and the prevailing belief in the disparity of levels of the two seas, the error was excusable, and Le Pre's conclusion was uncritically accepted by a succession of subsequent authors of canal projects. Studies for a canal were made again in 1834 and in 1846. In 1854 Ferdinand de Lesseps received an Act of Concession from the viceroy (khedive) of Egypt, Sa'id Pasha, to construct a canal; and in 1856 a second act conferred on the Suez Canal Company (Compagnie Universelle du Canal Maritime de Suez) the right to operate a maritime canal for 99 years after completion of the work. Construction began in 1859 and took 10 years instead of the 6 that had been envisaged; climatic difficulties, a cholera epidemic in 1865, and early labour troubles all slowed down operations. An initial project was the cutting of a small canal (the Al-Isma'iliyah) from the delta along the Wadi Tumelat, with a southern branch (now called the As-Suways al-Hulwah Canal; the two canals combined were formerly called the Sweet Water Canal) to Suez and a northern one (Al-'Abbasiyah Canal) to Port Said. This supplied drinking water in an otherwise arid area and was completed in 1863. At first, digging was done by hand with picks and baskets, peasants being drafted as forced labour. Later, dredgers and steam shovels operated by European labourers took over, and, as dredging proved cheaper than dry excavation, the terrain was artificially flooded and dredged wherever possible. Other than in the few areas where rock strata were met, the entire canal was driven through sand or alluvium. In August 1869 the waterway was completed, and it was officially opened with an elaborate ceremony in November. Finance The Suez Canal Company had been incorporated as an Egyptian joint stock company with its head office in Paris. Despite much early official coolness, even hostility, on the part of Great Britain, de Lesseps was anxious for international participation and offered shares widely. Only the French responded, however, buying 52 percent of the shares; of the remainder, 44 percent was taken up by Sa'id Pasha. The first board of directors included representatives of 14 countries. In 1875, financial troubles compelled the new viceroy, Isma'il Pasha, to sell his holding, which (at the instigation of the prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli) was at once bought by the British government. Until that year the shares had remained below their issue price of 500 francs each. With the British purchase (at 568 francs each) steady appreciation took place, to more than 3,600 francs in 1900. Originally allocated 15 percent of the net profits, Egypt later relinquished the percentage and, after the sale of Isma'il's 176,602 shares, remained unrepresented on the board of directors until 1949, when it was, in effect, reinstated as a board member and allotted 7 percent of gross profits. In that year it was also agreed that 90 percent of new clerical jobs and 80 percent of technical appointments would be offered to Egyptians and that the Canal Company would provide hospitals, schools, and other amenities. In 1956, 13 years before the concession was due to expire, the canal was nationalized by Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser. Since then the Egyptian government has exercised complete control, though the original company continues in Paris as a conglomerate. The economy Operation In 1870, the canal's first full year of operation, there were 486 transits, or fewer than 2 per day. In 1966 there were 21,250, an average of 58 per day, with net tonnage increasing from 437,000 (1870) to 274,000,000. By the mid-1980s the number of daily transits had fallen to an average of 50, but net annual tonnage was about 350,000,000. Cargo ship in the Suez Canal near Ismailia, Egypt. Originally, passing involved one ship entering a passing bay and stopping, but after 1947 a system of convoys was adopted. Transit time at first averaged 40 hours; by 1939 it had been reduced to 13 hours, but as traffic increased after 1942 it went up to 15 hours in 1967, despite convoying, reflecting the great growth in tanker traffic at that time. Convoys leave dailytwo southbound and one northbound. Southbound convoys moor at Port Said, Al-Ballah, Lake Timsah, and Al-Kabrit, where there are bypasses that allow northbound convoys to proceed without stopping. With reduced overall traffic and some enlargement of the canal, transit time since 1975 has been about 14 hours. Upon entering the canal at Port Said or Suez, ships are assessed for tonnage and cargo (passengers have ridden without charge since 1950) and are handled by one pilot (sometimes two) for actual canal transit, which is increasingly controlled by radar. The nature of traffic has greatly altered, especially because of the enormous growth in oil shipments from the Persian Gulf since 1950. In 1913, oil in northbound traffic amounted to 291,000 tons; in the peak year of 1966, it amounted to 166,000,000 tons. The closure of the canal from 1967 to 1975 led to the use of large oil tankers on the route around the Cape of Good Hope. Since 1975 the increased size of tankersthe largest of which cannot use the canalhas reduced the canal's importance in the international oil trade. Canal traffic has also been affected by the development of sources of crude oil in Algeria, Libya, Nigeria, the North Sea, and Mexicoall areas outside of the canal route. Competition has also risen from new pipelines to the Mediterranean, including the pipeline from Suez to Alexandria that was opened in 1977. From an all-time peak in 1945 of 984,000, passenger traffic has declined to negligible numbers because of the competition from aircraft, which also now carry high-value cargoes of small bulk. Further decline in canal traffic resulted from a shift of Australasian trade from Europe to Japan and East Asia. Some movement of oil, however, from refineries in Russia, southern Europe, and Algeria has continued, chiefly to India, and the shipment of dry cargoes, including grain, ores, and metals, has increased. A more recent feature has been the growth of container (lighter aboard ship, or LASH) and roll-on roll-off traffic through the canal, chiefly destined for the highly congested ports of the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. Asia still receives large quantities of North American wheat, corn (maize), and barley through the canal. The major northbound cargoes consist of crude petroleum and petroleum products, coal, ores and metals, and fabricated metals, as well as wood, oilseeds and oilseed cake, and cereals. Southbound traffic consists of cement, fertilizers, fabricated metals, and cereals. Much southbound traffic consists of empty oil tankers, for supertankers with a deadweight tonnage of up to 200,000 tons can now transit the canal empty but not laden. Communications and towns Construction of the canal led to the growth of settlements in what had been, except for Suez, almost uninhabited arid territory. More than 70,000 acres (28,000 hectares) were brought under cultivation, and about 8 percent of the total population was engaged in agriculture, with approximately 10,000 commercial and industrial activities of various sizes. In 1967 almost all the population was evacuated, and most of the settlements were severely damaged or destroyed during subsequent warfare. With the reopening of the canal in 1975, however, reconstruction of the area was begun, and most of the population had returned by 1978. Port Said was created a customs-free zone in 1975, and tax-free industrial zones have been established along the canal. The major urban centres are Port Said, with its east-bank counterpart, Bur Fu'ad; Ismailia (Al-Isma'iliyah), on the north shore of Lake Timsah; and Suez, with its west-bank outport, Bur Tawfiq. Water for irrigation and for domestic and industrial use is supplied by the Nile via the Al-Ism'iliyah Canal. There are two roads from the pre-1967 period on the west bank. Ferries have largely been replaced by four underpasses: north of Suez, south and north of Lake Timsah, and at Al-Qantarah. From this last, a road continues along the east bank to Bur Fu'ad, and another runs eastward through the Sinai to Israel. Newer roads on the east bank run eastward to the Khutmiyah, Giddi, and Mitla passes, which give access to the central Sinai. The railway on the west side of the canal was restored in the 1970s. In 1980, the Ahmad Hamdi road tunnel was opened, connecting Egypt proper with its governorate (muhafazah) of Shamal Sina'. About one mile of the tunnel passes beneath the canal itself.