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Sharm El Sheikh, commonly abbreviated to Sharm, is an Egyptian city on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula, in South Sinai Governorate, on the coastal strip along the Red Sea. Its population is approximately 73,000 . Sharm El Sheikh is the administrative hub of Egypt's South Sinai Governorate, which includes the smaller coastal towns of Dahab and Nuweiba as well as the mountainous interior, St. Catherine and Mount Sinai. The city and holiday resort is a significant centre for tourism in Egypt, while also attracting many international conferences and diplomatic meetings. [edit] Geography and history
Sharm El Sheikh is on a promontory overlooking the Straits of Tiran at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba. Its strategic importance led to its transformation from a fishing village into a major port and naval base for the Egyptian Navy. It was conquered by Israel during the Suez Crisis of 1956 and returned to Egypt in 1957. A United Nations peacekeeping force was stationed there until the 1967 Six-Day War when it was reoccupied by Israel. Sharm El Sheikh remained under Israeli control until the Sinai Peninsula was returned to Egypt in 1982 after the Egypt–Israel peace treaty of 1979. Egypt's then-president Hosni Mubarak designated Sharm El Sheikh as The City of Peace in 1982 and the Egyptian government began a policy of encouraging the development of the city. Foreign and Egyptian investors contributed to building projects including mosques and churches. The city is now an international tourist destination, and environmental zoning laws limit the height of buildings to avoid obscuring the natural beauty of the surroundings. A hierarchical planning approach was adopted for the Gulf of Aqaba, whereby the area's components were evaluated and subdivided into zones, cities and centers. In accordance with this approach, the Gulf of Aqaba zone was subdivided into four cities: Taba, Nuweiba, Dahab and Sharm El Sheikh. Sharm El Sheikh city has been subdivided into five homogeneous centers, namely Nabq, Ras Nusrani, Naama Bay, Umm Sid and Sharm El Maya. Sharm El Sheikh city, with Naama Bay, Hay el Nour, Hadaba, Rowaysat, Montazah and Shark's Bay form a metropolitan area. Before 1967, Sharm El Sheikh was little more than an occasional base of operations for few local fishermen; the nearest permanent settlement was in Nabk, north of Ras El Nasrani ("The Tiran Straits"). Commercial development of the area began when the Israelis built the settlement of Ofira, overlooking Sharm El Maya Bay and the Nesima area, and opened the first tourist-oriented establishments in the area at Naama Bay, to the north. These included a marina hotel on the southern side of the bay, a nature field school on the northern side, diving clubs, a promenade, and the Naama Bay Hotel. The site off the shore gun emplacements at Ras Nasrani opposite Tiran Island is now a diving area. In 2005, the resort was hit by the Sharm El Sheikh terrorist attacks, which were carried out by an extremist Islamist organisation targeting Egypt's tourist industry. Eighty-eight people were killed, the majority of them Egyptians, and over 200 were wounded by the attack, making it the second deadliest terrorist attack in the country's history. The deadliest terrorist attack took place in Sinai when militants detonated a bomb inside a crowded mosque in the Sinai Peninsula on 24 November 2017 and then sprayed gunfire on panicked worshipers as they fled, killing at least 305 people and wounding at least 128 others. The third deadliest was the Luxor massacre of 1997.
Amidst the 2011 Egyptian protests, then-president Mubarak reportedly went to Sharm El Sheikh and resigned there on 11 February 2011. [edit] Research Tips
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