Editing Port Said (section)

===Founding (1859) ===
[[File:PORT-SAÏD -- De Lesseps monument (n.d.) - front - TIMEA.jpg|thumb|Ferdinand de Lesseps monument on the tourist jetty|left]]
[[File:French sailors and Indian troops at Port Said 1914.jpg|thumb|French sailors and Indian troops at Port Said in 1914]]
[[File:Port-Said. Village Arabe.png|thumb|Postcard of the Arab quarter of Port Said]]
[[File:Port Said, The Office of the Suez Canal Company (n.d.) - front - TIMEA.jpg|thumb|250px|The office of the Suez Canal Company in Port Said, built in 1893|left]]

Port Said was founded by [[Sa'id of Egypt]] on Easter Monday, April 25, 1859, when [[Ferdinand de Lesseps]] gave the first symbolic swing of the pickaxe to signal the beginning of construction. The first problem encountered was the difficulty for ships to drop anchor nearby. Luckily, a single rocky outcrop flush with the shoreline was discovered a few hundred meters away. Equipped with a wooden wharf, it served as a mooring berth for the boats. Soon after, a wooden [[jetty]] was built, connecting the departure islet, as it quickly became known, to the beach. This rock could be considered the heart of the developing city, and it was on this highly symbolic site, forty years later, that a monument to de Lesseps was erected.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

There were no local resources here. Everything Port Said needed had to be imported: wood, stone, supplies, machinery, equipment, housing, food and even water. Giant water storage containers were erected to supply fresh water until the [[Sweet Water Canal]] could be completed. One of the most pressing problems was the lack of stone. Early buildings were often imported in kit form and made great use of wood. A newly developed technique was used to construct the jetties called conglomerate concrete or "Beton Coignet", which was named after its inventor François Coignet. Blocks of concrete were sunk into the sea to be the foundations of the jetties. Still more innovative was the use of the same concrete for the [[lighthouse of Port Said]], the only original building still standing in Port Said.
In 1859 the first 150 laborers camped in tents around a wooden shed. A year later, the number of inhabitants had risen to 2000 — with the European contingent housed in wooden bungalows imported from northern Europe. By 1869, when the canal opened, the permanent population had reached 10,000. The European district, clustered around the waterfront, was separated from the Arab district, Gemalia, {{cvt|400|m|ft|sp=us}} to the west, by a wide strip of sandy beach where a tongue of [[Lake Manzala]] reached towards the sea. This inlet soon dried out and was replaced by buildings; over time there was no division between the European and Arab quarters.

Since its establishment, Port Said played a significant role in Egyptian history. The British entered Egypt through the city in 1882, starting their occupation of Egypt.