Egypt boasts a diverse geography with coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea, the River Nile, and the Red Sea. Egypt borders Libya to the west, Palestine and Israel to the east, and Sudan to the south.
Location map of Egypt.
Geographic Overview
The longest straight-line distance in Egypt from north to south is 1,420 km (880 mi), while that from east to west measures 1,275 km (792 mi). Egypt has more than 2,900 km (1,800 mi) of coastline on the Mediterranean Sea, the Gulf of Suez, and the Gulf of Aqaba. Despite covering only about 5% of the total area of Egypt, the Nile Valley and Nile Delta are the most important regions, supporting about 99% of the population.
Most of the country lies within the wide band of desert that stretches eastwards from Africa's Atlantic Coast across the continent and into southwest Asia. Egypt is predominantly desert; only 3.5% (35,000 km2) of the total land area is cultivated and permanently settled.
The Nile Valley and Delta
The Nile Valley extends approximately 800 km from Aswan to the outskirts of Cairo. The Nile Valley is known as Upper Egypt, while the Nile Delta region is known as Lower Egypt. Steep rocky cliffs rise along the banks of the Nile in some stretches, while other areas along the Nile are flat, with space for agricultural production.
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The Nile delta consists of flat, low-lying areas. Some parts of the delta are marshy and water-logged, and thus not suitable for agriculture. The Nile Valley and Delta, the most extensive oasis on earth, was created by the world's longest river and its seemingly inexhaustible sources. Without the topographic channel that permits the Nile to flow across the Sahara, Egypt would be entirely desert.
The White Nile, which begins at Lake Victoria in Uganda, supplies about 28% of the Nile's Egyptian waters. In its course from Lake Victoria to Juba in South Sudan, the White Nile's channel drops more than 600 m. In its 1,600-km course from Juba to Khartoum, Sudan's capital, the river descends just 75 m. The Blue Nile, which originates at Lake Tana in Ethiopia, provides on average some 58% of the Nile's Egyptian waters.
This river has a steeper gradient and therefore flows more swiftly than the White Nile, which it joins at Khartoum. Unlike the White Nile, the Blue Nile carries a considerable amount of sediment. The much shorter Atbarah River, which also originates in Ethiopia, joins the main Nile north of Khartoum between the fifth and sixth cataracts (areas of steep rapids) and provides about 14% of the Nile's waters in Egypt.
The Nile enters Egypt a few kilometers north of Wadi Halfa, a Sudanese town that was completely rebuilt on high ground when its original site was submerged in the reservoir created by the Aswan High Dam. As a result of the dam's construction, the Nile actually begins its flow into Egypt as Lake Nasser, which extends southwards from the dam for 320 km to the border and for an additional 158 km within Sudan.
Below Aswan, the cultivated floodplain strip widens to as much as twenty km. North of Isna (160 km north of Aswan), the plateau on both sides of the valley rises to as much as 550 m above sea level; at Qina (some 90 km north of Isna) the 300-m limestone cliffs force the Nile to change course towards the southwest for about 60 km before it turns northwest for about 160 km to Asyut.
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At Cairo, the Nile spreads out over what was once a broad estuary, subsequently filled by silt deposits to form what is now a fertile, fan-shaped delta some 250 km wide at its seaward extremity and extending about 160 km from north to south. The Nile Delta covers approximately 22,000 km2 (roughly equivalent in area to that of Massachusetts). According to historical accounts from the first century AD, seven branches of the Nile once ran through the delta.
Since then, nature and man have closed all but two main outlets: the east branch, Damietta (also known as Dumyat; 240 km long), and the west branch, Rosetta (235 km long). Both outlets are named after the ports located at their respective mouths. A network of drainage and irrigation canals supplements these remaining outlets.
Archaeological research indicates that people once lived at a much higher elevation along the river than they do today, probably because the river was higher or the floods more severe. The timing and amount of annual flow were always unpredictable. Measurements of annual flows as low as 1.2 billion m3 and as high as 4.25 billion m3 have been recorded.
The construction of dams on the Nile, particularly the Aswan High Dam, transformed the mighty river into a large and predictable irrigation ditch. Lake Nasser, the world's largest artificial lake, has enabled planned use of the Nile regardless of the amount of rainfall in Central Africa and East Africa. Researchers have estimated that beneficial silt deposits in the valley began about 10,000 years ago.
Today the Aswan High Dam obstructs most of this sediment, now retained in Lake Nasser.
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The Western Desert
The Western Desert covers an area of some 700,000 km2, thereby accounting for around two-thirds of Egypt's total land area. This immense desert to the west of the Nile spans the area from the Mediterranean Sea southwards to the Sudanese border. The desert's Jilf al Kabir Plateau, at a mean altitude of some 1000 m, constitutes an exception to the uninterrupted territory of basement rocks covered by layers of horizontally bedded sediments forming a massive plain or low plateau.
The Great Sand Sea lies within the desert's plain and extends from the Siwa Oasis to Jilf al Kabir. There are seven important depressions in the Western Desert, and all are considered oases except the largest, Qattara, the water of which is salty. The Qattara Depression, which includes the country's lowest point, encompasses 19,605 square kilometers (7,570 sq mi), which is similar to the size of Lake Ontario. It is largely below sea level and is 133 meters (436 ft) below sea level at the lowest.
Limited agricultural production, the presence of some natural resources, and permanent settlements are found in the other six depressions, all of which have fresh water provided by the Nile or by local groundwater. The Siwah Oasis, close to the Libyan border and west of Qattara, is isolated from the rest of Egypt but has sustained life since ancient times. The Siwa's cliff-hung Temple of Amun was renowned for its oracles for more than 1,000 years.
The other major oases form a topographic chain of basins extending from the Faiyum Oasis (sometimes called the Fayyum Depression) which lies 60 kilometers (37 mi) southwest of Cairo, south to the Bahariya, Farafirah, and Dakhilah oases before reaching the country's largest oasis, Kharijah. A brackish lake, Birket Qarun, at the northern reaches of Al Fayyum Oasis, drained into the Nile in ancient times.
The Eastern Desert and Sinai Peninsula
The topographic features of the desert region east of the Nile differ from those to the west of the Nile. The Eastern Desert is relatively mountainous. The elevation rises abruptly from the Nile, and a downward-sloping plateau of sand gives way within 100 km to arid, defoliated, rocky hills running north and south between the Sudan border and the Delta.
The region's most prominent feature is the easterly chain of rugged mountains, the Red Sea Hills, which extend from the Nile Valley eastward to the Gulf of Suez and the Red Sea. The Sinai Peninsula is a triangular-shaped peninsula, about 61,100 km2 in area. Similar to the desert, the peninsula contains mountains in its southern sector that are a geological extension of the Red Sea Hills, the low range along the Red Sea coast that includes Mount Catherine (Jabal Katrinah), the country's highest point, at 2,642 m above sea-level.
The southern side of the peninsula has a sharp escarpment that subsides after a narrow coastal shelf that slopes into the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba. The elevation of Sinai's southern rim is about 1,000 m. Moving northward, the elevation of this limestone plateau decreases.
Recent Geomorphic Changes: A Case Study of Ras El-Bar
The Nile Delta coast experienced a substantial storm surge, identified as a little tsunami triggered by the KahramanmaraÅ, Turkeyâs earthquakes (KMTE) on February 6, 2023. This event affected the beachâs morphodynamics, resulting in new geomorphic features. The beach at Ras El-Bar comprises two segments: one lying to the east, in the shadow of detached breakwaters (DBWs), where wave height and energy are reduced. In contrast, the western segment, outside the DBWs, exhibits higher wave energy, showing erosional features with a relatively steep-sloped beach, a shelly berm, and coarse to medium quartz sand.
Shoreline changes along the Ras El-Bar coast, recorded from satellite images, reveal significant coastal displacement despite existing protection structures. The Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS) indicates that most of the coast experiences seasonal changes with low rates of erosion and accretion. Some locations at Y-groins and DBWs embayments exhibit average erosion of -6.1 m. East of the DP-EJs, accretion occurs, averaging 8.4 m between 2020 and 2023. Toward the Y-groins and DBWs embayments, these segments are erosional, with a shoreline retreat of -6.1 m.
Here is a table summarizing the shoreline changes:
| Location | Erosion/Accretion | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Most of the coast | Seasonal changes | Low rates of erosion and accretion, ranging from -3.24 to 2.2 m |
| Y-groins and DBWs embayments | Erosion | Average erosion of -6.1 m |
| East of Damietta Port Eastern Jetties (DP-EJs) | Accretion | Averaging 8.4 m between 2020 and 2023 |
Shoreline changes resulting from the February 6, 2023, little tsunami reveal significant coastal displacement.
Coastal Erosion and the Methods Used to Reduce It
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