ʻArish or el-ʻArīsh (Arabic: العريش al-ʿArīš  Egyptian Arabic pronunciation: [elʕæˈɾiːʃ]) is the capital and largest city of the North Sinai Governorate of Egypt, as well as the largest city on the Sinai Peninsula, lying on the Mediterranean coast 344 kilometres (214 mi) northeast of Cairo and 45 kilometres (28 mi) west of the Egypt–Gaza border.

A third possibility is that the name el-Arish was created when a new settlement of some "huts" (Arabic: عرش, romanized: ʕarš) was established in the 7th or 8th century.

It is possible that the city of Rinokoloura fell into ruins in the first half of the 7th century, and a new community arose that the new inhabitants started to call el-Arish, after their poor living conditions.

[4] M. Ignace de Rossi derived the Arabic name from the Egyptian ϫⲟⲣϣⲁ(ⲓ), Jorsha, 'noseless', an analogue of Greek Rinocorura.

[7] North Sinai is targeted by Egyptian government planners to divert population growth from the high-density Nile Delta.

Its Köppen climate classification is hot desert (BWh), although prevailing Mediterranean winds moderate its temperatures, typical to the rest of the northern coast of Egypt.

The Northern Coastal Highway runs from el-Qantarah at the Suez Canal through Arish to the Gaza border crossing at Rafah.

Herodotus describes a city named Ienysos (Ancient Greek: Ιηνυσος) located between Lake Serbonis and Kadytis.

First mentioned by Diodorus, who based his information on the Aegyptiaca of Hecataeus of Abdera, written in the 4th century BC, Actisanes conquered Egypt during the reign of king Amasis.

[20] A number of funerary steles with a repeated consolation formula "nobody is immortal" (Ancient Greek: ούδείς άθάνατος) were found in and around the city.

[22] According to John of Nikiu, in 610 AD the army of general Bonosos passed through Rinocoroura (mentioned under the corrupted name Bikuran) on its way to Athribis.

In 1903, Joseph Chamberlain, the British colonial secretary, agreed to consider ʻArīsh, and Herzl commissioned the lawyer David Lloyd George a charter draft, but his application was turned down once an expedition, led by Leopold Kessler had returned and submitted a detailed report to Herzl, which outlined a proposal to divert some of the Nile waters to the area for the purpose of settlement.

In December 1916, during World War I, the Anzac Mounted Division and other British Empire units captured the 'Arish area from Ottoman forces.

El-ʻArīsh Military Cemetery, designed by Robert Lorimer,[26] was built in 1919 for Commonwealth personnel who died during World War I.

Survivors alleged that approximately 400 wounded Egyptians were buried alive outside the captured El Arish International Airport, and that 150 prisoners in the mountains of the Sinai were run over by Israeli tanks.

[28] In 1995, two graves holding the remains of 30 to 60 people, allegedly Egyptian soldiers killed after their surrender during the 1967 War, were found near Arish.

The desert region outside Arish served to host trucks to move supplies into Gaza, and a place to locate field hospitals.