Al-Ismāʿīliyyah, muḥāfaẓah (governorate), northeastern Nile delta, Lower Egypt. It is a square-shaped territory with a long, narrow extension northward along the Suez Canal, ending just south of Port Said. Its eastern boundary is the Suez Canal, including Great Bitter Lake (Buḥayra al-Murrah al-Kubrā), a shallow, marshy salt lake forming part of the Suez Canal. The governorate consists mainly of desert, except in the northern part. It is traversed east–west by the Al-Ismāʿīliyyah Canal, formerly called the Sweet Water Canal, built 1858–63 from the Būlāq quarter of Cairo on the Nile to the city of Ismailia on Lake Al-Timsāḥ to provide ...(100 of 323 words)