[8][9] Darius the Great's Suez Inscriptions were texts written in Old Persian, Elamite, Babylonian and Egyptian on five monuments erected in Wadi Tumilat, commemorating the opening of a canal between the Nile and the Bitter Lakes, to facilitate a shipping connection between Egypt, then a satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire, and Persia (i.e. the greater portion of the Empire itself).

Partial transliteration and translation of the inscription: Transliteration of the Old Persian text: xâmanišiya \ thâtiy \ Dârayavauš \ XŠ \ adam \ Pârsa \ amiy \ hacâ \ Pâ rsâ \ Mudrâyam \ agarbâyam \ adam \ niyaštâyam \ imâm \ yauviyâ m \ katanaiy \ hacâ \ Pirâva \ nâma \ rauta \ tya \ Mudrâyaiy \ danuvatiy \ ab iy \ draya \ tya \ hacâ \ Pârsâ \ aitiy \ pasâva \ iyam \ yauviyâ \ akaniya \ avathâ \ yathâ \ adam \ niyaštâyam \ utâ \ nâva \ âyatâ \ hacâ \ Mudrâ yâ \ tara \ imâm \ yauviyâm \ abiy \ Pârsam \ avathâ \ yathâ \ mâm \ kâma\ âha English translation: "King Darius says: I am a Persian; setting out from Persia I conquered Egypt.

I ordered to dig this canal from the river that is called Nile and flows in Egypt, to the sea that begins in Persia.

In the 7th century AD a town named "Kolzum" stood just north of the site of present-day Suez and served as eastern terminus of a canal built by Amr ibn al-'As, linking the Nile River and the Red Sea.

Kolzum's trade fell following the closure of the canal in 770 by the second Abbasid caliph, al-Mansur, to prevent his enemies in Arabia from accessing supplies from Egypt and the lands north of it.

[11] The Qarmatians led by al-Hasan al-A'sam defeated a Fatimid army headed by Jawhar al-Siqilli at Kolzum in 971 and thereby captured the town.

[12] Suez was situated nearby and served as a source of drinking water for Kolzum, according to the Arab traveler al-Muqaddasi, who visited in 986.

[14] Between 1183 and 1184, Raynald had ships stationed in the Red Sea to prevent the Ayyubid garrison at Kolzum from accessing water.

In response, Saladin's brother al-Adil had Husam ad-Din Lu'lu' build a naval fleet, which sailed to the southern port of Aidab to end Raynald's venture.

[12] To prevent Portuguese attacks against Egyptian coastal towns and the Red Sea port of Jeddah, Qansuh al-Ghawri, the last Mamluk sultan, ordered a 6,000-man force headed by Selman Reis to defend Suez in 1507, which in turn limited the Mamluk military's capabilities against the Ottomans in the Mediterranean Sea.

[citation needed] German explorer Carsten Niebuhr noted that in the 18th century a 20-strong fleet sailed annually from Suez to Jeddah, which served both as Mecca's port and Egypt's gateway for trade with India.

[17] The city was virtually destroyed during battles in the late 1960s and early 1970s between Egyptian and Israeli forces occupying the Sinai Peninsula.

Avraham Adan tried to capture the city but it failed, it cost the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) 80 troops killed, 120 wounded and 40 tanks destroyed.

Suez was the first city to hold major protests against the government of Hosni Mubarak during the 2011 Egyptian revolution and was the scene of the first fatality of that uprising.

The district also includes Ain Sokhna, one of Egypt's most important sea resorts, overlooking the Gulf of Suez.

Ain Sokhna has numerous high-class sea resorts and is frequented by many tourists, Egyptians and foreigners, all over the year due to its warm weather.

The Suez Canal offers a significantly shorter passage for ships, as compared to passing round the Cape of Good Hope.