Qantara Sharq

Qantara Sharq is an Egyptian city on the east bank of the Suez Canal, in the Sinai Peninsula at the northern edge of Ismailia Governorate. It is linked to its twin Qantara Gharb on the western bank by the Suez Canal Bridge, and the El-Salam Canal crosses to it through a dam, while the Sinai Railway passes nearby on its way over the El-Ferdan Railway Bridge towards Bir al-Abd. The modern city was established following the construction of the Suez Canal, although the place had been inhabited long before; its name is thought to come from the qantara, or bridge, that crossed an old branch of the Nile into Sinai. Excavations have uncovered a Roman cemetery beneath the city and the Tharu Fortress on the ancient Horus Military Road, and a Technology Valley lies about ten kilometres to the east. The city was fought over in the 1973 war and was liberated on 8 October, and in 1979 it was annexed to Ismailia Governorate when Sinai was divided into two governorates.