Lake Manzala ( ar, بحيرة المنزلة ''baḥīrat manzala''), also Manzaleh, is a brackish lake, sometimes called a lagoon, in northeastern Egypt on the

Nile Delta The Nile Delta ( ar, دلتا النيل, or simply , is the delta formed in Lower Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the world's largest river deltas—from Alexandria in the west to Po ...

near

Port Said Port Said ( ar, بورسعيد, Būrsaʿīd, ; grc, Πηλούσιον, Pēlousion) is a city that lies in northeast Egypt extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, north of the Suez Canal. With an approximate population of 6 ...

and a few miles from the ancient ruins at Tanis.Dinar, p.51 It is the largest of the northern deltaic lakes of Egypt. As of 2008 it is 47 km long and 30 km wide.Zahran, p.283

Etymology

The lake's name derives from . In Middle Ages it was also known as pi-Manjōili (), translated into Greek as Xenedokhou (), thus making the modern Arabic name a translation of a Coptic one, where phonetic resemblance is only coincidental.

Geography

Lake Manzala is long but quite shallow. Though Lake Manzala's unaltered depth is only four to five feet, alterations to the depth were made during the construction of the Suez Canal to allow the Canal to extend 29 miles lengthwise along the lake. Its bed is soft clay. Before construction of the Suez Canal, Lake Manzala was separated from the Mediterranean Sea by a strip of sand 200 to 300 yards wide. Port Said was established adjacent to Lake Manzala during the nineteenth century to support canal construction and related travel. The lake's location directly south of the

Port Said Airport Port Said Airport serves the city of Port Said, Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge ...

restricts the city's capacity for growth.

Suez Canal

Lake Manzala is the northernmost of three natural lakes intersected by the

Suez Canal The Suez Canal ( arz, قَنَاةُ ٱلسُّوَيْسِ, ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. The long canal is a popular ...

, the other two being Lake Timsah and the

Great Bitter Lake The Great Bitter Lake ( ar, البحيرة المرة الكبرى; Arabic transliteration, transliterated: ''al-Buḥayrah al-Murra al-Kubrā'') is a large saltwater lake in Egypt that is part of the Suez Canal. Before the canal was built in ...

. Construction of the canal proceeded from north to south, reaching Manzala first. Due to the lake's shallowness, it was necessary to dig a banked channel for ships to pass.

Ecology

Lake Manzala served as a significant source of inexpensive fish for human consumption in Egypt, but pollution and lake drainage have reduced the lake's productivity. In 1985, the lakes fishery was an open area of 89,000 ha and employed roughly 17,000 workers. The government of Egypt drained substantial portions of the lake in an effort to convert its rich Nile deposits to farmland. The project was unprofitable: crops did not grow well in the salty soil and the value of resulting produce was less than the market value of the fish that the reclaimed land had formerly yielded. By 2001, Lake Manzala had lost approximately 80 percent of its former area through the effects of drainage efforts.Ibrahim, p.145

Notes

References

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Manzala El Manzala () is a region ('' markaz'') in Egypt. Situated in the Dakahlia Governorate, it lies on the Lake Manzala coast in the northeastern part of the country. Etymology The town's name comes from Lake Manzala which in turn derives from . In ...

Nile Delta Port Said