Hurghada

Different than many other destinations in Egypt like Luxor, Aswan, and Alexandria, where the ancient Egyptians resided and built their civilizations, Hurghada is rather a contemporary established city. At the beginning of the 20th century, in the period from 1900 till 1920, Hurghada was a very small village for the Arabian fishermen. Historical records claim that in 1906, there were only 6 primitive houses in the city. The city has a simple commercial activity at the time as the fishermen used to dry the fish and then sell it to the caravans coming from the Nile Valley. Moreover, in 1909, petrol was first discovered around Hurghada. However, the real excavation and production process began after the end of World War II. Despite the fact that Hurghada is the largest city in the region of the Red Sea in Egypt today, nothing more was known about Hurghada before the 1920s when sailors coming from the Arabian Peninsula came to fish near the Egyptian borders. Their meeting point was a large tree which was called “Gharqad”, Nitraria in the Latin language. There was a famous sentence that was common among these sailors; “let’s meet at the Ghardaqa”. This was how the name Ghardaqa, or Hurghada in English mainly originated.