Founded in c. 331 BC by Alexander the Great,[8] Alexandria grew rapidly and became a major centre of Hellenic civilisation, eventually replacing Memphis, in present-day Greater Cairo, as Egypt's capital.

Called the "Bride of the Mediterranean" internationally,[9] Alexandria is a popular tourist destination and an important industrial centre due to its natural gas and oil pipelines from Suez.

Alexandria grew rapidly, becoming a major centre of Hellenic civilisation and replacing Memphis as Egypt's capital during the reign of the Ptolemaic pharaohs who succeeded Alexander.

Alexandria was located on the earlier Egyptian settlement, which was called Rhacotis (Ancient Greek: Ῥακῶτις, romanized: Rhakôtis), the Hellenised form of Egyptian r-ꜥ-qd(y)t. As one of many settlements founded by Alexander the Great, the city he founded on Rhacotis was called Alexándreia hḗ kat' Aígypton (Ἀλεξάνδρεια ἡ κατ' Αἴγυπτον), which some sources translated as "Alexandria by Egypt", as the city was, at that time, in the periphery of Egypt proper (the area beside the Nile).

[13] Some of the Alexandrian and Greek populaces, e.g., Hypsicles, also referred to the city as Alexándreia hḗ prós Aígypton (Ἀλεξάνδρεια ἡ πρός Αἴγυπτον, "Alexandria near Egypt").

After he captured the Egyptian Satrapy from the Persians, Alexander wanted to build a large Greek city on Egypt's coast that would bear his name.

He chose the site of Alexandria, envisioning the building of a causeway to the nearby island of Pharos that would generate two great natural harbours.

[8] Alexandria was intended to supersede the older Greek colony of Naucratis as a Hellenistic center in Egypt and to be the link between Greece and the rich Nile valley.

Inheriting the trade of ruined Tyre and becoming the centre of the new commerce between Europe and the Arabian and Indian East, the city grew in less than a generation to be larger than Carthage.

In 215 AD, the emperor Caracalla visited the city and, because of some insulting satires that the inhabitants had directed at him, abruptly commanded his troops to put to death all youths capable of bearing arms.

[24] Although the Byzantine emperor Heraclius recovered it in 629, in 641 the Arabs under the general 'Amr ibn al-'As invaded it during the Muslim conquest of Egypt, after a siege that lasted 14 months.

Although al-Murshidi lived in seclusion, Ibn Battuta writes that he was regularly visited by crowds, high state officials, and even by the Sultan of Egypt at the time, al-Nasir Muhammad.

[27] Ibn Battuta also visited the Pharos lighthouse on two occasions: in 1326 he found it to be partly in ruins and in 1349 it had deteriorated to the point that it was no longer possible to enter.

[37] Like the rest of Egypt's northern coast, the prevailing north wind, blowing across the Mediterranean, gives the city a less severe climate than the desert hinterland.

Alexandria experiences violent storms, rain and sometimes sleet and hail during the cooler months; these events, combined with a poor drainage system, have been responsible for occasional flooding in the city in the past though they rarely occur anymore.

Two main streets, lined with colonnades and said to have been each about 60 m (200 ft) wide, intersected in the centre of the city, close to the point where the Sema (or Soma) of Alexander (his Mausoleum) rose.

Traces of its pavement and canal have been found near the Rosetta Gate, but remnants of streets and canals were exposed in 1899 by German excavators outside the east fortifications, which lie well within the area of the ancient city.Alexandria consisted originally of little more than the island of Pharos, which was joined to the mainland by a 1,260 m-long (4,130 ft) mole and called the Heptastadion ("seven stadia"—a stadium was a Greek unit of length measuring approximately 180 m or 590 ft).

In the 1st century, the population of Alexandria contained over 180,000 adult male citizens,[56] according to a census dated from 32 AD, in addition to a large number of freedmen, women, children and slaves.

[citation needed] Beneath the acropolis itself are the subterranean remains of the Serapeum, where the mysteries of the god Serapis were enacted and whose carved wall niches are believed to have provided overflow storage space for the ancient Library.

[citation needed] Alexandria's catacombs, known as Kom El Shoqafa, are a short distance southwest of the pillar, consist of a multi-level labyrinth, reached via a large spiral staircase and featuring dozens of chambers adorned with sculpted pillars, statues, and other syncretic Romano-Egyptian religious symbols, burial niches, and sarcophagi, as well as a large Roman-style banquet room, where memorial meals were conducted by relatives of the deceased.

Since the great and growing modern city stands immediately over the ancient one, it is almost impossible to find any considerable space in which to dig, except at enormous cost.

The most important results were those achieved by Dr. G. Botti, late director of the museum, in the neighbourhood of "Pompey's Pillar", where there is a good deal of open ground.

The making of the new foreshore led to the dredging up of remains of the Patriarchal Church; and the foundations of modern buildings are seldom laid without some objects of antiquity being discovered.

Al-Nour Party, which is based in the city and overwhelmingly won most of the Salafi votes in the 2011–12 parliamentary election, supports the president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

In antiquity Alexandria was a major centre of the cosmopolitan religious movement called Gnosticism[70] (today mainly remembered as a Christian heresy).

The Arab Academy for Science, Technology & Maritime Transport is a semi-private educational institution that offers courses for high school, undergraduate level, and postgraduate students.

Université Senghor is a private French university that focuses on the teaching of humanities, politics and international relations, which mainly recruits students from the African continent.

It was likely created after his father had built what would become the first part of the library complex, the temple of the Muses—the Museion, Greek Μουσείον (from which the Modern English word museum is derived).

It is located in a restored Italian style palace in Tariq El Horreya Street (formerly Rue Fouad), near the centre of the city.

During the Hellenistic period, poets evolving in the court of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (Philiscus of Corcyra, Lycophron, Alexander Aetolus, Sositheus,…)[83] are currently known as the Alexandrian Pleiad.