How Long Did It Take to Make the Suez Canal?

The excavation took some 10 years, with forced labour (corvée) being employed until 1864 to dig out the canal.

How Long Did It Take to Make the Suez Canal?

The Suez Canal is one of the most important waterways in the world, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea, and allowing for much easier access between Europe and Asia. It was a grand engineering project that took ten years to complete and changed the course of history in the process. In this article, we will explore how long it took to make the Suez Canal and the events that took place during its construction.

The idea of building a canal connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea had been around since antiquity, but it was not until 1854 that the concept was taken seriously by the Egyptian ruler, Said Pasha. He commissioned a French engineer, Ferdinand de Lesseps, to undertake the project. Construction of the canal began in 1859 and continued for the next ten years, with the project finally being completed in 1869.

The construction of the canal was a massive undertaking that required a great deal of labor and resources. It was estimated that 1.5 million people worked on the project, with the majority of them being Egyptian peasants. The canal was dug by hand, and the soil from the excavation was used to build up the banks. The entire project cost around 100 million French francs, an enormous amount of money in those days