View source for Minet El-Basal

;[[Alexandria 1900]]

Minet El-Bassal district was one of the famous Alexandrian Industrial districts. It is located in the neighborhood of West
Alexandria, near the end of the Mahmoudiya Canal in front of the Western Harbor gate at Alexandria Port.
 
The District history begins when the Ottoman ruler Mohammed Ali Pasha (1805-1840) recognized the importance of the Industrial revolution happening in Europe. He worked to industrialize Egypt and, in particular, to industrialize the military. In order to fi nance imports of European factories and advisers, the government exported first food grains, sugar and long-staple cotton.
 
Minet El-Bassal district was built (around 1810) overlooking the only seaport in the Egyptian land “The Western Harbor” in order to form a trade center for all Egyptian products exported to European countries. It consisted of headquarters of the international trading companies, large store-houses, workers housing and “Bourse de Cotton” an international marketing center for Egyptian cotton.
 
The district was, and still is, supported by awell designed transportation network either for people or goods. In Alexandria, a freight railway was built in the 1850s to serve the western port, together with the adjacent Mahmoudiya Canal already built under Muhammad Ali’s era, triggered extensive industrial development in this area. This network helped connect the district with all vital spots of local production and marketing. It could therefore be said that the city controlled virtually the whole of the cotton industry of Egypt. Its warehouses, processing units and its canal, roads, tram line and railway systems grew to match this influence and the resulting demand. By 1870, Alexandria was the fourth leading Mediterranean port after Istanbul, Marseilles, and Genoa.