Iskandarīyah, Al-

▪ governorate, Egypt

      muḥāfaẓah (governorate), Lower Egypt. The muḥāfaẓah is densely settled in the north in and around its capital, Alexandria (Al-Iskandarīyah); it includes a desert hinterland extending south more than 50 miles (80 km) into the Western Desert. Alexandria, in the northeastern panhandle of the muḥāfaẓah, is built on a strip between the Mediterranean and Buḥayrat Maryūṭ (the classical Lake Mareotis) and juts northward into the Mediterranean on an artificial T-shaped promontory, accommodating two harbours. Ongoing land reclamation has brought about 190,000 acres (77,000 hectares) into agricultural production. There are natural gas wells at Abū Qīr, on a natural promontory just northeast of the city. The Alexandria urban area has numerous industries and port and land transportation facilities. At Abū Qīr are the extensive remains of the ancient Egyptian centre of Pe-Gewat, known in Hellenistic times as Canopus. A pleasure resort in Ptolemaic times, it had an important temple of the god Serapis; the temple was destroyed in the 4th century AD. Area 1,034 square miles (2,679 square km). Pop. (2006) 4,110,015.

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