[4] The canal was the property of the Egyptian government, but European shareholders, mostly British and French, owned the concessionary company which operated it until July 1956, when President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised it—an event which led to the Suez Crisis of October–November 1956.

[15] The legendary Sesostris (likely either Pharaoh Senusret II or Senusret III of the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt[14][15]) may have constructed the ancient canal, the Canal of the Pharaohs, joining the Nile with the Red Sea (1897–1839 BCE), when an irrigation channel was constructed around 1848 BCE that was navigable during the flood season, leading into a dry river valley east of the Nile River Delta named Wadi Tumilat.

Next comes the Tyro tribe and, the harbour of the Daneoi, from which Sesostris, king of Egypt, intended to carry a ship-canal to where the Nile flows into what is known as the Delta; this is a distance of over 60 miles (100 km).

[12][26][27][28][29] According to the Histories of the Greek historian Herodotus,[30] about 600 BCE, Necho II undertook to dig a west–east canal through the Wadi Tumilat between Bubastis and Heroopolis,[12] and perhaps continued it to the Heroopolite Gulf and the Red Sea.

[31] According to Pliny the Elder, Necho's extension to the canal was about 92 kilometres (57 statute miles),[12] equal to the total distance between Bubastis and the Great Bitter Lake, allowing for winding through valleys.

[12] The length that Herodotus tells, of over 1,000 stadia (i.e., over 183 kilometres or 114 miles), must be understood to include the entire distance between the Nile and the Red Sea[12] at that time.

[33] It may be that by Darius's time a natural[12] waterway passage which had existed[11] between the Heroopolite Gulf and the Red Sea[34] in the vicinity of the Egyptian town of Shaluf[12] (alt.

[11][12] In support of this contention one can note that in 31 BCE, during a reversal of fortune in Mark Antony's and Cleopatra's war against Octavian, she attempted to escape Egypt with her fleet by raising the ships out of the Mediterranean and dragging them across the isthmus of Suez to the Red Sea.

Venetian leaders, driven to desperation, contemplated digging a waterway between the Red Sea and the Nile—anticipating the Suez Canal by almost 400 years—to bring the luxury trade flooding to their doors again.

[51][52] Their findings, recorded in the Description de l'Égypte, include detailed maps that depict the discovery of an ancient canal extending northward from the Red Sea and then westward toward the Nile.

But the plan was abandoned because of the erroneous belief that the Red Sea was 8.5 m (28 ft) higher than the Mediterranean, and the waterway would thus require the costly and time-consuming construction of locks to operate.

Britain, however, feared that a canal open to everyone might interfere with its India trade and therefore preferred a connection by train from Alexandria via Cairo to Suez, which Stephenson eventually built.

In 1854 and 1856, Ferdinand de Lesseps obtained a concession from Sa'id Pasha, the Khedive of Egypt and Sudan, to create a company to construct a canal open to ships of all nations.

A contemporary British skeptic claimed "One thing is sure... our local merchant community doesn't pay practical attention at all to this grand work, and it is legitimate to doubt that the canal's receipts... could ever be sufficient to recover its maintenance fee.

The opening ceremonies began at Port Said on the evening of 15 November, with illuminations, fireworks, and a banquet on the yacht of the Khedive Isma'il Pasha of Egypt and Sudan.

The following ships had to anchor in the canal itself until the Péluse was hauled clear the next morning, making it difficult for them to join that night's celebration in Ismailia.

[72][73] Ismailia was the scene of more celebrations the following day, including a military "march past", illuminations and fireworks, and a ball at the Governor's Palace.

The Khedive, in particular, was able to overcome initial reservations held by both British and French creditors by enlisting the help of the Sursock family, whose deep connections proved invaluable in securing much international support for the project.

The ensuing commercial and diplomatic activities resulted in the International Commission of Constantinople establishing a specific kind of net tonnage and settling the question of tariffs in its protocol of 18 December 1873.

The British representative from 1883 to 1907 was Evelyn Baring, 1st Earl of Cromer, who reorganized and modernized the government and suppressed rebellions and corruption, thereby facilitating increased traffic on the canal.

[87] The Convention of Constantinople in 1888 declared the canal a neutral zone under the protection of the British, who had occupied Egypt and Sudan at the request of Khedive Tewfiq to suppress the Urabi Revolt against his rule.

According to the pre-agreed war plans under the Protocol of Sèvres, Israel invaded the Sinai Peninsula on 29 October, forcing Egypt to engage them militarily, and allowing the Anglo-French partnership to declare the resultant fighting a threat to stability in the Middle East and enter the war – officially to separate the two forces but in reality to regain the Canal and bring down the Nasser government.

[93][94][95] To save the British from what he thought was a disastrous action and to stop the war from a possible escalation, Canadian Secretary of State for External Affairs Lester B. Pearson proposed the creation of the first United Nations peacekeeping force to ensure access to the canal for all and an Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula.

After the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Egypt closed the Canal to Israeli shipping,[97] despite UN Security Council resolutions from 1949 and 1951 urging it not to, on the grounds that hostilities had ended with the 1949 armistice agreement.

[121][122] Referring to the European and American market, a few maritime experts have disputed the prediction of a drastic effect on trade, saying this "really isn't a substantial transit route for crude" according to Marshall Steeves, energy markets analyst at IHS Markit, and "there are existing stocks" according to Camille Egloff of Boston Consulting Group and alternative sources of supply, noting that traffic only slowed down and that it might only have impacted sectors with existing shortages (such as the semiconductor industry).

On 25 May 2023, a Hong Kong-flagged cargo ship, MV Xin Hai Tong 23, was grounded near the southern end of the canal, but it was refloated by tugboats in less than a day.

[156] They are designed to be movable, and can be completely rotated against the banks of the canal to allow shipping through, or else individual sections can be moved to create a narrower channel.

In the early 21st century, the Suez Canal has suffered from diminished traffic due to piracy in Somalia, with many shipping companies choosing to take the long route instead.

[173][174] The Bremen-based Beluga Group claimed in 2009 to be the first Western company to attempt using the Northern Sea Route without assistance from icebreakers, cutting 6,400 kilometres (4,000 mi) off the journey between Ulsan, Korea and Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

The dominant, south to north, migratory passage across the canal is often called Lessepsian migration (after Ferdinand de Lesseps) or "Erythrean invasion".