The Suez Canal

Today, the Suez Canal is owned by Egypt and operated by the Suez Canal Authority. The canal itself is 101 miles long and 984 feet wide. It begins at the Mediterranean Sea at Point Said flows through Ismailia in Egypt, and ends at Suez on the Gulf of Suez. It also has a railroad running its entire length parallel to its west bank. It can accommodate ships with a vertical height of 62 feet.  Most of the Suez Canal is not wide enough for two ships to pass side by side. To accommodate this, there is one shipping lane and several passing bays where ships can wait for others to pass.The Suez Canal has no locks because Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea's Gulf of Suez have approximately the same water level. It takes around 11 to 16 hours to pass through the canal and ships must travel at a low speed to prevent erosion of the canal's banks. The canal supports approximately 8% of the world’s shipping traffic with almost fifty vessels traveling through the canal daily. It is heavily used due to it being the quickest route from the red sea to the mediterranean sea.