SUEZ, a port of Egypt on the Red Sea and southern terminus of the Suez Canal. Pop. about 40,000. Suez is supplied with water by the fresh-water canal, which starts from the Nile at Cairo and was opened in 1863. Before this, water had to be brought from "the Wells of Moses," a small oasis 3 m. distant. About 2 m. south of the town are the quays constructed on the Canal and connected with the town by an embankment. On one of the quays is a statue to Thomas Waghorn, the organizer of the "overland route" to India. The ground on which the port is built has all been reclaimed from the sea. The accommodation provided includes a dry dock 410 ft. long, ioo ft. broad and nearly 36 ft. deep. There are separate basins for warships and merchant ships, and in the roadstead at the mouth of the canal is ample room for shipping. Suez is a quarantine station for pilgrims from Mecca.
In the 7th century a town called Kolzum stood, on a site adja cent to that of Suez, at the southern end of the canal which then joined the Red Sea to the Nile. On the Ottoman conquest of
Egypt in the 16th century Suez became a naval as well as a trading station, and here fleets were equipped which for a time disputed the mastery of the Indian Ocean with the Portuguese. According to Niebuhr, in the 18th century a fleet of nearly twenty vessels sailed yearly from Suez to Jidda, the port of Mecca and the place of correspondence with India. The overland mail route from England to India by way of Suez was opened in 1837. The regular Peninsular and Oriental steamer service began a few years later, and in 1857 a railway was opened from Cairo through the desert. The present railway follows the canal from Suez to Ismailia and Zagazig, whence branches diverge to Cairo and Alexandria.