Port Said was founded by King Said of Egypt on Easter Monday, April 25, 1859.
It lies in uez Canal. It is a duty-free port, and a tourist resort especially during summer.
The Lighthouse of Port Said is the first building in the world built from reinforced concrete.
The city has many old houses with grand balconies on all floors, making Port Said an impressive centre of architecture.
Port Said’s twin city is Port Fuad on the eastern, Asian bank of the canal, created by the directors of the Suez Canal Company at the end of the World War I, building 300 houses for its labourers and functionaries. Designed by the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, the French architecture of the houses give them a distinctive look. The new city was founded in December 1926.
The two cities are connected by free ferries running all through the day, and together they form a metropolitan area with over a million residents, occupying both the African and the Asian sides of the Suez Canal.
Port Said has acted as a global city since its establishment. It flourished particularly during the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth, when it was inhabited by people from various nationalities and religions. Mostly from Mediterranean countries, they coexisted peacefully in a cosmopolitan community.
By 1869, when the Suez Canal opened, the permanent population of Port Said had reached 10,000. The European district, clustered around the waterfront, was separated from the Arab district, Gemalia, 400 metres to the west, by a wide strip of sandy beach. Over time the division between the European and Arab quarters disappeared.
In 1902, Egyptian cotton from Mataria started to be exported via Port Said; and in 1904 a standard gauge railway opened to Cairo. The trade attracted a large commercial community including many people of Greek origin.
By the late 1920s, the population numbered over 100,000 people. Port Said was by now a thriving, bustling international port with Jewish merchants, Egyptian shopkeepers, Greek photographers, Italian architects, Swiss hoteliers, Maltese administrators, Scottish engineers, French bankers and diplomats from all around the world, living and working alongside a large local Egyptian community. And always passing through were international travellers to and from Africa, India and the Far East.
Each community brought in its own customs, cuisine, religion and architecture. The 1930s for example saw the advent of elegant public buildings designed by Italian architects.
Port Said has played a significant role in Egyptian history. The British entered Egypt through the city in 1882, starting their occupation of Egypt. The Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 stipulated a British pledge to withdraw all their troops from Egypt, except those necessary to protect the Suez Canal and its surroundings.
Following World War II, Egypt denounced the Treaty of 1936, leading to skirmishes with British troops guarding the Canal in 1951. Next year the Egyptian Revolution erupted.
In 1956 President Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal Company. The invasion of Egypt by Britain and France, with the help of Israel, led to the Suez Crisis. The main battles occurred in Port Said, which played a historic role in resisting the “tripartite aggression.”
The anniversary of the withdrawal of foreign troops on 23 December 1956 is celebrated annually as National Day.
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 Port Said was 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.
TCI Sanmar Chemicals