What name is given to the canal Darius I cut between the Nile and the Red Sea?

The canal Darius I cut between the Nile and the Red Sea is commonly called the Darius Canal.

Darius ordered work on an earlier Egyptian waterway that connected a branch of the Nile with the Red Sea. The canal allowed ships to travel between the Nile system and the northern Red Sea, linking Egypt more directly with the Persian Empire’s eastern routes.

Several inscriptions discovered in Egypt record Darius’s role in the project. The waterway was not the modern Suez Canal: it followed an ancient route through the Wadi Tumilat and depended on the level and condition of the Nile.

The canal’s history involved more than one ruler. Pharaoh Necho II is associated with an earlier attempt, while later Egyptian and Persian authorities repaired or reused sections. That layered history explains why the waterway is also called the Canal of the Pharaohs.