Ancient Settlements Along The Delta Of The Nile River

SINCE ancient times the NILE RIVER was very important for all kinds of people, especially the Egyptians living near it. It rains but very seldom in Egypt so the annual floods between June and September brought about by heavy summer rains from the Ethiopian highlands and channeled through the Nile River is the main source of water for their plants, crops, animals and for their personal use.

Year after year the annual floods came. It causes the banks of the Nile River to overflow floodwater on the flat desert lands, bringing along its way mud and silts that were very fertile and suited for all kinds of plants and crops. Then after long period of time as a result of the yearly flooding- mud and silts gathered and formed into considerable areas of delta

However- the annual flood no longer happens in modern Egypt today from 1970 up because of the construction of the ASWAN DAM in the 1960's which controls it.

Egyptians and other tribes of people found the river deltas not only suitable for planting crops but also good places to live because of the ease of transportation and communication provided by the Nile River as well as its inexhaustible supply of fish and so human settlements along its deltas sprung like mushrooms.

(1) ALEXANDRIA

It is the largest seaport and the 2nd largest city n Egypt on the Mediterranean at the west end of the Nile delta; population 3,341,000 (male 51.15%; female 48.85%) Tourist: 54 hotels, 1819 mosques, 36 churches. It was founded by Alexander the Great. It became an administrative, commercial and cultural center under the Ptolemies and the Romans. Its library of 700,000 volumes was the greatest of ancient times. It declined with the discovery of a route around the Cape of Good Hope, flourished again in the 19th century under Mohammed Ali. Again the principal Egyptian port, it is an industrial center with food, chemical products, cigarettes and textiles as main products.

(2) CAIRO

IT is the capital of the Arab republic of Egypt at the head of the Nile delta with a population estimated in 1994 at 13 million people. Founded in 969, it is the country's administrative, commercial and cultural center. It is the site of Al-Azhar University and 2 state universities. It has 400 mosques.

(3) DAMANHUR

IT is a city in N. Egypt, capital of Beheira province in the Nile delta; population of 188,931 taken in 1986. Its industries include cotton ginning, potato processing, date picking, rice. It is the burial place of RABBI YAAKOV ABUHATZEIRA who died there in 1879 on his way to the Land of Israel. The site is visited every year by hundreds of devotees. AHMED H. ZEWAIL, the 1999 Nobel Prize Winner for Chemistry was born in Damanhur in 1946.

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