Siwa Oasis Attractions

The Oasis of Siwa, lying in latitude 29° 12' north and longitude 25° 20' east in a wide depression in the Western Desert, 65ft/20m below sea level, is the most westerly of the Egyptian oases. Thanks to its remote and isolated situation it has preserved many old customs and characteristics.

Siwa is an attractive island of green under a sky that is always cloudless. The inhabitants are Berbers, with a mingling of bedouin and Sudanese slaves acquired in the course of the centuries. They speak their own Berber dialect, and usually Arabic as well. The oasis owes its fertility to its 200 or so springs, 80 of which are used for irrigation; in ancient times there were said to be a thousand springs. The main crops grown in the oasis are dates (200,000 palms), olives (50,000 trees) and citrus fruits.

In 331 B.C. Alexander the Great traveled to Siwa the first King of Egypt to do so and was received as the son of Zeus-Amun and crowned with the ram's horn crown.