size of egypt Summary and Overview

THE SIZE OF EGYPT Egypt lies on both sides of the Nile, and in ancient times included the land watered by it, as far as the First Cataract, the deserts on either side being included in Arabia and Libya. Ezekiel indicates that it reached from Migdol (now Tell es-Semut, east of the Suez Canal) to Syene (now Aswan or Assouan), on the border of Nubia, near the First Cataract of the Nile. Eze 29:10, margin. The Delta and the valley of the Nile are estimated to have an area of about 9600 square miles (or a little more than the State of New Hampshire), of which only 5626 miles are fit for cultivation. In the more extended sense of later times, Egypt is bounded on the north by the Mediterranean, on the east by the Red Sea and Arabia, on the south by Nubia, and on the west by the Great Desert. The length of the country in a straight line from the Mediterranean to the First Cataract is about 520 miles; its breadth is from 300 to 450 miles, and its entire area is about 212,000 square miles. Nubia, Ethiopia, and other smaller districts bordering on the Nile to the south of Egypt, have been brought under its sway. The following statement of the area and population of Egypt and dependencies is from the official report of 1876: Egypt proper has thus an area almost as large as that of New York. Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, and Indiana combined, and the present ruler of Egypt controls a territory nearly half as large as the United States of America.