Nile Delta

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While the course of the Nile from the cataracts in the south to the point some 1,212mi/20km north of Cairo where it splits into its separate arms has remained practically unchanged through historical times, the pattern of the Delta has changed considerably. In antiquity there were seven arms the Pelusiac, the Tanitic, the Mendesian, the Bucolic or Phatnitic, the Sebennytic, the Boibitine and the Canopic. There are now only two, the Rosetta arm to the west and the Damietta arm to the east, both of which flow through the middle third of the Delta, whereas in ancient times the Pelusiac and Canopic arms reached the sea at the extreme east and west ends of the area.

Although the ancient remains in the Delta cannot compare with those to be seen in Middle and Upper Egypt, this does not mean that the region was of less importance in antiquity. Long before the unification of Egypt the sand hills between the arms of the Nile, winding their way to the sea through impassable papyrus swamps, were settled by peoples of semi peasant culture very different from those of the Nile Valley and organized in their own independent principalities. These Delta peoples traded with the inhabitants of the Nile Valley from an early period; but on occasion there were wars as well as peaceable exchanges between them.

With the unification of the kingdom (First Dynasty) the Delta was incorporated in the Pharaonic Empire as the most northerly part of Lower Egypt, with the royal symbols of the Red Crown and the papyrus. The old territorial divisions or nomes, however, remained as relatively independent administrative units, although in the course of the centuries they underwent some changes.

The bringing into cultivation of the Delta swamps cost the inhabitants enormous effort over a long period; but the ampler space available in this region offered much better conditions for agriculture than the Nile Valley, which at some points was very narrow indeed and in total possessed only half the cultivable area of the Delta. Thus in the course of many centuries indeed almost two millennia Lower Egypt increased steadily in importance, and in the Age of the Ramessids, who themselves stemmed from the Delta, gained mastery over the whole of Egypt. During the last 1,500 years of ancient Egyptian history several ruling houses came from the Delta, where they built mighty royal residences (Pi-Ramesse, Tanis). In the absence of any large quarries of stone in the region they caused palaces and temples in other parts of Egypt to be pulled down and reused the stones in their own sumptuous buildings. It is not clear why all these buildings have disappeared, leaving only the characteristic tells and koms to relieve the otherwise level and featureless landscape; but undoubtedly peasants digging for sebbakh, the fertile soil found on ancient habitation sites, played a considerable part in the process of destruction.

The Nile Delta is still Egypt's major agricultural region, with the associated industrial (foodstuff industries, textile factories) and commercial activities. Its largest and most important city and the main center of attraction for tourists in Lower Egypt is the port of Alexandria; the principal center of commerce and communications, situated in the heart of the Delta, istanta; and other majortowns are El-Mansura, Damanhur, El-Zagazig and Benha, together with Port Said, Ismailia and Suez on its eastern margins.