Alexandria
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What is Alexandria?
Alexandria is a major city and urban governorate in Egypt, located on the Mediterranean Sea at the western edge of the Nile River delta. Founded by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE, it was once a great center of Hellenic scholarship and science. Alexandria served as Egypt's capital until its surrender to Arab forces in 642 CE.
The city played a key role in preserving and transmitting Hellenic culture and was a center for early Christian history. Alexandria declined starting in the 16th century but grew in the 19th century as a cotton industry center. Today, Alexandria is Egypt’s principal seaport, a major industrial center, and is considered the country’s second capital.
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Where is Alexandria located in Egypt?
Alexandria is a major city and urban governorate in Egypt, located on the Mediterranean Sea at the western edge of the Nile River delta, approximately 114 miles (183 km) northwest of Cairo in Lower Egypt. It is one of Egypt’s largest cities, its principal seaport, and a major industrial center. Alexandria is linked to other Egyptian cities by railway, road, and air service and is connected by canal with the Nile.
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Who founded Alexandria and when was it established?
Alexander the Great founded Alexandria in 332 BCE, after beginning his Persian campaign. His vision was for it to be the capital of his Egyptian territory, as well as a naval base with control over the Mediterranean Sea.
After Alexander departed from Egypt, his viceroy, Cleomenes, took over the city's creation. Following Alexander's death in 323 BCE and the breakup of his empire, Ptolemy I Soter, his viceroy, gained control of Alexandria and started the dynasty named after him.
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Why was Alexandria important in ancient times?
Alexandria was highly significant in ancient times because Alexander the Great founded it in 332 BCE as the capital of his Egyptian dominion and a naval base to control the Mediterranean. The city quickly became a major Mediterranean hub for trade and a center for Greek scholarship and science.
Home to a famed library and research institute called the Mouseion, Alexandria attracted scholars like Euclid and Archimedes. The city also had a sizable Jewish population and learning center, where the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament was produced. The lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, was a technological marvel.
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What famous landmarks or institutions were in Alexandria, like the Library or the Lighthouse?
Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE and designed by Dinocrates, Alexander’s personal architect. Alexandria quickly became known for its Hellenic planning and architecture.
The Lighthouse of Alexandria, also known as the Pharos of Alexandria, was one of the Seven Wonders of the World. It was reputedly over 350 feet (110 meters) high. In 1994, many stones and statues that belonged to the lighthouse were discovered in the waters off Pharos Island.
The Library of Alexandria was part of the research institute at Alexandria known as the Alexandrian Museum (Mouseion). The library was conceived as a universal library.
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How has Alexandria changed from ancient times to today?
Founded by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE, Alexandria was designed with Hellenic planning and architecture. Within a century, it rivaled other ancient cities. Alexandria became a Mediterranean hub for Greek scholarship and science, boasting the famed Library of Alexandria and attracting scholars like Euclid and Archimedes.
However, by the late 18th century, Alexandria had declined, with its former glory largely vanished. The city revived in the 19th century, becoming a major center for the cotton industry. Alexandria became tied to the Nile Valley more than ever before, becoming the locus of an emergent Egyptian national consciousness. Today, Alexandria remains Egypt’s “second capital,” contributing to the national economy and serving as a summer holiday destination.
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Alexandria, major city and urban muḥāfaẓah (governorate) in Egypt. Once among the greatest cities of the Mediterranean world and a centre of Hellenic scholarship and science, Alexandria was the capital of Egypt from its founding by Alexander the Great in 332 bce until its surrender to the Arab forces led by ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ in 642 ce. One of Egypt’s largest cities, Alexandria is also its principal seaport and a major industrial centre. The city lies on the Mediterranean Sea at the western edge of the Nile River delta, about 114 miles (183 km) northwest of Cairo in Lower Egypt. Area city, 116 square miles (300 square km). Pop. (2006) city, 4,110,015.
Character of the city
Alexandria has long occupied a special place in the popular imagination by virtue of its association with Alexander and Cleopatra. Alexandria played an important role in preserving and transmitting Hellenic culture to the wider Mediterranean world and was a crucible of scholarship, piety, and ecclesiastical politics in early Christian history. Although it has been asserted that Alexandria declined as a result of its conquest by Muslim Arabs in the 7th century ce, such a statement is misleading. While the city’s political primacy was lost when the capital was moved to the interior, Alexandria remained an important centre of naval operations, maritime commerce, and craft production. As late as the 15th century, the city prospered as a transit point in the trade conducted between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean basin.
Beginning in the 16th century, however, the city suffered a period of protracted decline owing to epidemic disease and administrative neglect; by the end of the 18th century, traces of Alexandria’s former splendour had largely vanished. By the time French troops invaded Egypt in 1798, Alexandria had been reduced to a town of some 10,000 inhabitants, significant mainly for its role in Ottoman maritime networks. Flourishing in the 19th century as a major centre of the booming cotton industry, the modern city had come to bear little in common with the ancient metropolis.
Alexandria has generally been characterized by a cultural ambivalence inherent in the city’s location—extending along a spit of land with its back to Egypt and its face to the Mediterranean. Throughout most of its history, Alexandria has thus remained a cosmopolitan town, belonging as much—or perhaps more—to the wider Mediterranean world as to its hinterland. The revival of the town in the 19th century, however, brought about a profound change in the city’s identity. With the significant increase in agricultural exports, the influx of native Egyptians to the city, and the formation and integration of the Egyptian state, Alexandria became tied to the Nile valley more closely than ever before. As a result, it also became the locus of an emergent Egyptian national consciousness.
Beginning in the mid-18th century, these underlying changes would be overshadowed for roughly a century by the rise to power of a Levantine business community. Foreign dominance was reinforced by the overlay of British colonialism beginning in 1882 and by the formation of a foreign-dominated municipality in 1890. The arts flourished during this century-long interlude, and the city still boasts fine Neoclassical and Art Nouveau architecture dating from this period. The literary side of the city’s flowering is reflected in the works of the Alexandria-born Greek writer Constantine Cavafy, who drew on Alexandria’s fabled past in his poetry. Likewise, the decadent cosmopolitanism of the foreign community in Alexandria was depicted by the English writer Lawrence Durrell in his famous series of novels, The Alexandria Quartet (1957–60). A contrasting portrayal of the modern city is given in Naguib Mahfouz’s Miramar (1967); set in postcolonial Alexandria, Mahfouz’s novella offers a view of the city as an integral part of Egyptian history and society. This process of integration was accelerated after the 1952 revolution, when most of the remaining foreign residents departed.
At the beginning of the 21st century, Alexandria remained Egypt’s “second capital.” It continued to contribute substantially to the national economy and was popular as a summer holiday destination.
Landscape
City site
The modern city extends 25 miles (40 km) east to west along a limestone ridge, 1–2 miles (1.6–3.2 km) wide, that separates the salt lake of Maryūṭ, or Mareotis—now partly drained and cultivated—from the Egyptian mainland. An hourglass-shaped promontory formed by the silting up of a mole (the Heptastadion), which was built soon after Alexandria’s founding, links the island of Pharos with the city centre on the mainland. Its two steeply curving bays form the basins for the Eastern Harbour and the Western Harbour.
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Climate
The prevailing north wind, blowing across the Mediterranean, gives Alexandria a markedly different climate from that of the desert hinterland. The summers are relatively temperate, although humidity can build up in July and in August, the hottest month, when the average temperature reaches 87 °F (31 °C). Winters are cool and invariably marked by a series of violent storms that can bring torrential rain and even hail. The mean daily temperature in January, which is the coldest month, is 64 °F (18 °C).