The Ottoman Republic Of Egypt: The Suez Canal

Apart from the Panama Canal, the Suez Canal also made trading easier and cheaper across Egypt on the African continent. The man made canal is located by the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Egypt was the first country to dig a man made canal across its land that connected the Mediterranean Sea and Red Sea through the branches of the Nile River. In 1854 Ferdinand de Lesseps, French consul to Cairo, made an agreement with the Ottoman governor of Egypt to build a canal 100 miles across the Isthmus of Suez; a strip of land located in between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. A team of engineers created a plan to construct the Suez Canal and in 1856 the Suez Canal Company was also formed and granted the right to operate the canal for 99