During the 19th century, it was a popular British tourist destination, known for its Ottoman mansions, citrus groves and relative cleanliness.

[8] Iban Haqal mentioned it and said that it is a city on the Nile, close to the salt sea from a crater known as Ashtum (Ancient Greek: Στόμα, lit.

[3] Also mentioned in the Al-Mushtaq excursion, it was described as a civilized city with a market, merchants and workers, and it has farms, yields, wheat and barley, and it has many good words, and it has many palm trees and wet fruits, and it has whales and fish species from the salty sea and many indigo fish.

However, due to the huge costs of protecting it with strong walls and an impenetrable castle, he built a fortress in 1262 to monitor any possible upcoming invasion.

This had a more negative impact on Rashid, to the point that Abu al-Fidaa noted in the thirteenth century that the city was smaller than his mouth.

[14] Rashid contributed to the launching of the naval campaigns during Sultan Barbsay reign to invade the island of Cyprus and bring it under Egyptian control in 1426.

Rashid also suffered from the attacks of the Christian knights who lived on the island of Rhodes during the reign of the sultan Sayf ad-Din Jaqmaq.

[citation needed] Rafah, Alexandria, Abu Qir, Rosetta, Baltim, Kafr el-Dawwar and Mersa Matruh are the wettest places in Egypt.