Alexandria, Egypt — Towns & Travel Guide

What is Alexandria known for?

The governorate takes its name and its life from the coastal city of Alexandria, Egypt's front on the Mediterranean rather than on the desert of its interior. Sea air runs through it. On the African shore of the Mediterranean, this is one of Egypt's most recognised names, an Arabic-speaking province defined less by its inland reach than by the water at its edge.

Where is Alexandria?

Alexandria Governorate runs as a narrow band along the Mediterranean coast of Egypt. The Mediterranean is its seaward edge and its whole reason for being. Where much of Egypt turns inland to desert, this province turns outward to the water, a low coastal strip on the edge of the African landmass rather than a block of the interior.

The city of Alexandria fills much of it, and the governorate takes its shape from that seafront rather than from any range of hills or great river within its own bounds. Behind the shore the land lies flat and low, with little relief to break it. The ground rises little from the Mediterranean, so the province reads as coast and city more than as countryside, its horizon set by the sea on one side and the wider expanse of Egypt on the other.

Sea and shore define it. This is one of the points where the African coast of Egypt opens onto the Mediterranean, and the whole small province is shaped by that seam of land and water. Alexandria itself holds the province to the coast.

What is Alexandria like?

The culture of Alexandria faces the sea. As Egypt's great Mediterranean city, the province has long looked out to the water and to the wider world as much as inland to the rest of the country. Arabic is the everyday language here, as across Egypt.

Yet the coastal setting gives the province a temper of its own, cooler and more sea-touched than the desert heart of the nation. Everything in the province turns on the city of Alexandria itself. Life gathers along the shore, close to the water.

The sea shapes the food, the air, and the rhythm of the province in ways the inland cities of Egypt do not share, and the long tie between Alexandria and the Mediterranean sits at the centre of how the place sees itself. It is the country's outlook onto the sea. Its story is a coastal one within a mostly inland country.

That outward, coastal character marks Alexandria out among Egypt's provinces, an African city on the open water rather than a town of the interior. The name alone carries weight across the country.

What is the history of Alexandria?

Alexandria Governorate exists as one of the administrative provinces of Egypt. Its story is bound to the city of Alexandria, the coastal centre whose name the province carries and around which the whole division is drawn. The province follows the city.

Rather than an inland region defined by desert or farmland, this is a coastal governorate whose past and present alike turn on Alexandria and the Mediterranean at its edge.

What is the climate of Alexandria?

Alexandria has a mild coastal climate. The Mediterranean keeps the province warmer in winter and cooler in summer than the desert interior of Egypt, softening the extremes that mark the rest of the country. Rain falls mostly in winter.

Along this stretch of coast the wet season is a Mediterranean one, grey and damp, while the summers run long, warm, and dry. The sea softens every season here.

How do you get to Alexandria?

Most travellers reach the province through the city of Alexandria. As the coastal hub of the governorate, Alexandria draws the roads, rail, and flights that serve this stretch of the Egyptian coast, and onward links run inland to the rest of the country. The sea is a route too.

Ships call along the Mediterranean coast, tying the province to ports beyond Egypt. From the city, the rest of the governorate opens along the shore.