European Quarter of Ismailia
The garden town founded by Ferdinand de Lesseps in 1863 to build the Suez Canal — villas, avenues and Lake Timsah.
A town for the canal
Ismailia was founded in 1863 on the shore of Lake Timsah, halfway along the route of the Suez Canal, as the headquarters of the Suez Canal Company during the construction of the canal. It was named after Khedive Ismail, who ruled Egypt when the canal opened in 1869. The French diplomat and entrepreneur Ferdinand de Lesseps, the driving force behind the canal, lived here during the works. The town was planned with a European quarter for the company's engineers and officials and an Arab quarter for Egyptian workers, laid out around wide streets, squares and gardens.
The European quarter
The historic European quarter, known in Arabic as Hayy al-Afrangi, preserves many buildings from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: villas with verandas, wooden balconies and pitched roofs in a mix of French and colonial styles, administrative buildings of the Suez Canal Authority, churches and leafy avenues shaded by old trees. The house where de Lesseps lived, with his belongings, is maintained as a historic residence. The town's gardens and the promenade along Lake Timsah give it a calm, green character unusual in Egypt.
Around the town
The Ismailia Museum, founded in 1932, displays antiquities found during the digging of the canal. From the shores of the lake and the canal, visitors can watch the great ships passing through the Suez Canal. During the twentieth century, Ismailia played an important role in modern Egyptian history: the Muslim Brotherhood was founded here in 1928, and in January 1952 a battle between British forces and Egyptian police in the town helped spark the events that led to the revolution.
Exhibo editorial
Ismailia is a surprise after Cairo: quiet, green streets of old villas with verandas and wooden shutters, bougainvillea spilling over garden walls, and at the end of the avenues, the blue of Lake Timsah with giant container ships gliding past on the canal as if sailing through the desert.
Walk through the European quarter in the late afternoon, have a coffee by the lake, and watch the ships. It's a gentle, slightly melancholy place, a town built for a single great project — and one of the most pleasant urban walks in Egypt.
How to find it
Ismailia lies about 120 km north-east of Cairo, roughly 1.5–2 hours by car or by train. The European quarter lies between the railway station and Lake Timsah; walk along Mohamed Ali Street and the avenues around the Suez Canal Authority buildings towards the lake promenade.
