Egypt contains the Suez Canal, the waterway linking the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea.
The canal crosses the Isthmus of Suez and provides a direct maritime route between Europe and Asia. Before its construction, ships traveling between those regions generally had to sail around the Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa. The modern canal opened to navigation on 17 November 1869.
The waterway runs from Port Said on the Mediterranean to Suez on the Red Sea. It is operated by the Suez Canal Authority, an Egyptian state authority. Unlike the Panama Canal, the Suez Canal does not use a lock system because the two seas have broadly similar water levels.
The canal was nationalized by Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1956. The resulting Suez Crisis involved Egypt, Britain, France, and Israel. A major expansion project completed in 2015 added a parallel section and widened or deepened parts of the route.