History of the Suez Canal

History of the Suez Canal

The Suez Canal
The Suez Canal is located in the nation of Egypt, and it runs from Port Said, in the northern part of the country, to Port Tawfik, in the southern region. This canal was built to connect the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea, and thus create a quicker, and much more efficient waterway connecting Asia to Europe. At the time that this canal was constructed, commerce between European nations and Asia was booming, but the journey was an extremely long one for ships, which had to sail all the way around the tip of Africa to reach their destination. This extremely long voyage created a major problem for every country involved in the commerce, because it was cutting into their profits, so a plan was devised to create a waterway through Egypt that would create a much faster trade route. This plan took the form of the Suez Canal, and, to this day, remains one of the most ambitious and awe-inspiring construction projects to ever be completed.
The total original cost of building the Suez Canal is estimated to have been roughly 100 million dollars.1 As with most construction projects, this cost was much higher than the original cost estimate made by experts, who estimated that the cost would only be about 50 million dollars. This means that the canal ended up costing about twice as much as the original cost estimate.
Construction on the Suez Canal officially began on April 25, 1859, and construction on this project continued for roughly 10 years. The canal was opened to sailing vessels on November 16, 1869. At the time of its inaugural opening, the canal was controlled by an organization, known as the Suez Canal Authority.
The construction of the Suez Canal was completed in several different phases, which took a great deal of resources and manpower to finish. The first stage of the project time-line involved creating an accurate survey of the land, upon which the canal was to be constructed. At the time of its construction, GPS and satellite technology...

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