Suez Canal: history, route and dimensions

Before the modern cut

Earlier waterways ran from the Nile towards the Red Sea

On the schematic, the waterway leaves the Nile, crosses Wadi Tumilat, and runs down towards the Red Sea. It follows a different route: it does not trace the modern canal or cut directly between the Mediterranean and Red Sea.1 4

Herodotus says Necho II began the work, then stopped before its end. A stela of Darius I, from the late sixth century BCE, commemorates a Nile–Red Sea link. Ptolemaic, Roman, and Amr ibn al-ʿĀṣ phases followed; the records do not prove one waterway kept open without interruption.2 3 4

Some summaries name Senusret III as builder. The evidence here does not support treating that attribution as settled. On the sketch, the lines stop where the certainty stops. Many centuries later, excavation begins along a different line at Port Said.4 1

Regional schematic: no exact ancient alignment or uninterrupted line is implied.

25 April 1859 — Port Said

The bank fills with people and dredgers

At Port Said, 25 April 1859: the first cut opens the bank for the modern canal. The Compagnie universelle du canal maritime de Suez, led by Ferdinand de Lesseps, starts the site. Early excavation leans heavily on corvée: Egyptian fellahin forced to work.1 5

Political and legal changes in 1863–64 curtail corvée. Paid labour and mechanical excavation, including steam dredgers, take a growing share of the work. The BnF catalogue lists the Lesseps papers; the Compagnie archive leaves another documentary trace. Two dates outlast the site: first the waters join, then the guests arrive.1 5 6

Ten years on the cut

25 Apr 1859
Work starts at Port Said
Under the Compagnie universelle du canal maritime de Suez.1
1863–64
Corvée recedes
Political and legal changes curtail forced labour; mechanical excavation expands.1 5
18 Aug 1869
The waters join
The canal authority dates the joining of the seas to this day.1
17 Nov 1869
Inauguration
The public ceremony follows almost three months later.1 9

The waters join in August; the inaugural procession follows in November.

Two dates in 1869

The seas meet in August. The ceremony comes in November.

The waters join on 18 August 1869. Three months later, on 17 November, the imperial yacht L’Aigle carries Empress Eugénie and de Lesseps in the inaugural procession.1 9

The ship's name is easy to hear as Aida. Verdi's opera was not performed at the canal opening: Aida premiered in Cairo in December 1871. Leave the procession on the bank and follow one ship south through the lakes.9 10

A painted Port Said ceremony, with decorated pavilions, a crowd, ships and a lighthouse. — Édouard Riou’s painting of the Suez Canal inauguration ceremony at Port Said, 1869.
Image: Édouard Riou · 1869 · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Charles Trotin’s canal inauguration medal, circa 1869.

Image: Charles Trotin · c. 1869 · CC0 1.0 · Wikimedia Commons

A hand-coloured postcard depicts Khedive Ismail beside Ferdinand de Lesseps. — A later hand-coloured postcard imagining the 1869 opening—not a photograph from 1869.
Image: C. Andreopoulos · undated · digitized 24 February 2025 · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Port Said → Great Bitter Lakes → Suez

Follow the ship south

Three stops on a schematic: the northern entrance, the central basin, the southern exit to the Red Sea. Scroll; the ship moves with each step.

Route schematic, not to scale.

Port SaidNorthern entrance

Northern entrance

Port Said

Port Said opens the route at the Mediterranean. The line in this drawing shows the order of places, not a measured canal centreline.1 7

Central basin

Great Bitter Lakes

The canal crosses natural lakes connected to this navigation system. The water widens; the lakes are not locks and do not close the ship's path.7

Southern exit

Suez

At Suez the route reaches the Red Sea. No lock gates stand between the two seas: the modern canal stays at sea level. The line looks unchanged; the panel’s figures show how the canal has shifted.7

A drawn panorama of Ismailia and the canal, inscribed “Panorama d’Ismaila … 1869.” — Ismailia, drawn in 1869 from the Hôtel des Voyageurs terrace—not Port Said.
Image: François Edmond Pâris · 1869 · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

SCA measurements

The canal has grown longer and deeper

On the table, 52 m sits beside “surface width”. Start by separating length, water depth, and width: the SCA historical table gives about 164 km, 8 m, and 52 m for the 1869 canal.7

SCA now lists a maximum water depth of 24 m. Permitted draft can reach 66 ft, subject to vessel category and navigation rules. These are different measures: the canal bed and a ship's keel do not sit at the same level. Beyond depth and width sits another question: who owns the company that operates the route?7 8

One definition, two eras

Historical and current values follow the SCA tables; width is not one like-for-like figure along the whole canal.

Length

1869: about 164 km
Current SCA table: 193.3 km — length listed in the current SCA table

Maximum water depth

1869: 8 m
Current SCA table: 24 m — maximum water depth listed in the current SCA table

Surface width

1869: 52 m — stated for the 1869 canal
Current SCA table: SCA readings vary by section and measurement depth; there is no single width for the whole route.

Water depth is not a ship's draft. Current rules permit up to 66 ft draft, depending on vessel category and navigation conditions; the staged table's 240,000 DWT capacity is also conditional.

Illustrative shapes, not to scale; present-day width varies by section.

A canal plan and longitudinal section on a plate labeled in English. — Plan and longitudinal section from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica; a historical plate with English labels.
Image: Emery Walker · 1911 · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

November 1875

A share sale, three sums

The 1875 sale enters the ledger with 176,602 shares, each worth 500 francs. The Khedive sells them to the British government; the shares do not carry sovereignty over the waterway.1 12

The purchase contract records £3,976,582. In common usage, that became a rounded £4 million. Hansard separately gives £4.08 million as total parliamentary authority, including commission and expenses. Three sums, three definitions: they are neither added nor interchangeable. In 1956, the dispute shifts from shares to the company itself.11 12 13

Contract price: £3,976,582
Rounded purchase sum: £4 million
Total spending authority: £4.08 million

26 July 1956

The company operating the canal is nationalized

On 26 July 1956, Nasser announces the nationalization of the Suez Canal Company. The decree transfers the operator, its assets, and its obligations to the Egyptian state. Its subject is the company and what it owns and owes; it does not describe a transfer of foreign sovereignty over the canal.14 15

Israel enters Sinai on 29 October; British and French military action follows. The ceasefire takes effect on 6 November. British and French forces withdraw by 22 December, and Israel's withdrawal ends in March 1957. After obstructions are cleared, full traffic resumes on 10 April. A decade later, hostilities close the same route again.15 16

1967–1975

Fourteen ships are left in the Great Bitter Lake

Fourteen ships sit in the Great Bitter Lake. A fifteenth, stranded in Lake Timsah, enters the wider count of vessels trapped by the hostilities.17 18

Mines, wrecks, and damage hold the canal closed for almost eight years. Clearance begins in 1974. On 5 June 1975, Sadat reopens it. Fourteen in the lake; fifteen in the wider count. The boundary changes the total. Decades later, dredgers return for the works of 2015.1 17 18

The floating sheerleg crane THOR lifts wreckage during clearance of the canal. — A U.S. Navy image of Bugsier’s THOR lifting wreckage during Suez Canal clearance in 1974.
Image: U.S. Navy · 1974 · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

6 August 2015

72 kilometres of work, not a new canal 72 km long

On the chart, a new route runs beside the old one. The 2015 works include 35 km of new parallel channel and 37 km of widening or deepening on existing bypasses.19 20 21

Project promotion set a target of 97 ships a day by 2023. SCA's report for that year counts 26,434 transits: an average of 72.4 a day. The published target and the traffic achieved belong on separate lines. In 2021, one vessel stops the canal; freeing it does not immediately reopen both directions.19 22

A labeled NASA aerial view of a section of the New Suez Canal. — NASA aerial image of the labeled new canal section, 18 December 2016.
Image: NASA · 18 December 2016 · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

23–31 March 2021

The ship floats. The queue moves again two days later.

On 23 March 2021, a 400 m vessel runs aground in the channel. Ever Given floats again on 29 March; only on 31 March does SCA announce two-way navigation.25 26 30

SCA initially sought up to $916 million, then said it had reduced its demand to $550 million. A settlement was signed when the ship was released on 7 July; the final amount was not disclosed. Neither demand is a verified payment.27 28

UNCTAD's estimates of the canal's share of world trade and seaborne container trade use different denominators. They do not measure the value of stopped cargo or an economic loss bill. Past the queue, the annual ledger follows traffic on its own calendar.29 22

Ever Given lies diagonally across the canal with tugboats alongside, seen from the International Space Station. — NASA Johnson Space Center view of Ever Given wedged across the canal with tugs alongside, 27 March 2021.
Image: NASA Johnson Space Center · 27 March 2021 · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

A dated measure and its denominator

Traffic returns in dated comparisons

The chart opens three full years: 2023, 2024, and 2025. SCA counts 26,434, 13,213, and 12,758 transits in its annual report. Net tonnage, cargo tonnage, and ship counts each measure something different; keep the period and denominator beside the figure. The records behind each comparison follow below.22

Transits by calendar year

SCA's published passage count; each year covers the same 12-month denominator.

202326,434

202413,213

202512,758

Records and measures

Follow the records

Each claim links to its supporting record. The notes give the period behind statistics, identify contemporary accounts, and explain differences in measurement.

The Suez Canal, from Port Said to Suez

Ten years on the cut

Work starts at Port Said

Corvée recedes

The waters join

Inauguration

Port Said

Great Bitter Lakes

Suez

One definition, two eras

Length

Maximum water depth

Surface width

Transits by calendar year

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