17 Facts About Sinai Desert

Mount Sinai Desert is one of the most religiously significant places in the Abrahamic faiths.

In periods of foreign occupation, the Sinai Desert was, like the rest of Egypt, occupied and controlled by foreign empires, in more recent history the Ottoman Empire and the United Kingdom.

Today, Sinai Desert has become a tourist destination due to its natural setting, rich coral reefs, and biblical history.

Sinai Desert peninsula was the main region where mining of turquoise was carried out in Ancient Egypt, it was called Biau and Khetiu Mafkat by the ancient Egyptians.

The modern Arabic is an adoption of the Biblical name; the 19th-century Arabic designation of Sinai Desert was Jebel el-Tur, and the name of the mountain is derived from the town of El Tor, whose name comes from the Arabic term for the mountain where the prophet Moses received the Tablets of the Law from God, thus this mountain is designated as "Jabal At-Tur ", and the town is the capital of the South Sinai Desert Governorate of Egypt.

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Sinai Desert is triangular in shape, with its northern shore lying on the southern Mediterranean Sea, and its southwest and southeast shores on the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba of the Red Sea.

Largest city of Sinai Desert is Arish, capital of the North Sinai Desert, with around 160,000 residents.

Inland Sinai is arid, mountainous and sparsely populated, the largest settlements being Saint Catherine and Nekhel.

Sinai Desert is one of the coldest provinces in Egypt because of its high altitudes and mountainous topographies.

Fortress Tjaru in western Sinai Desert was a place of banishment for Egyptian criminals.

The Sinai Desert Peninsula became part of the Roman province of Arabia Petraea.

Saint Catherine's Monastery on the foot of Mount Sinai Desert was constructed by order of the Emperor Justinian between 527 and 565.

In October 1956, in what is known in Egypt as the Tripartite Aggression, Israel Defense Forces troops, aided by the United Kingdom and France, invaded Sinai Desert and occupied much of the peninsula within a few days.

In March 1957, Israel withdrew its forces from Sinai Desert, following strong pressure from the United States and the Soviet Union.

Since the early 2000s, Sinai Desert has been the site of several terror attacks against tourists, the majority of whom are Egyptian.

Population of Sinai has largely consisted of desert-dwelling Bedouins with their colourful traditional costumes and significant culture.

The most popular tourist destination in Sinai Desert are Mount Sinai Desert and St Catherine's Monastery, which is considered to be the oldest working Christian monastery in the world, and the beach resorts of Sharm el-Sheikh, Dahab, Nuweiba and Taba.