The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez. It is underlain by the Red Sea Rift, which is part of the Great Rift Valley.
The oceanic whitetip shark is a large pelagic requiem shark inhabiting tropical and warm temperate seas. It has a stocky body with long, white-tipped, rounded fins. The species is typically solitary, though they may gather in large numbers at food concentrations. Bony fish and cephalopods are the main components of its diet and females give live birth.
The Gulf of Aqaba or Gulf of Eilat is a large gulf at the northern tip of the Red Sea, east of the Sinai Peninsula and west of the Arabian Peninsula. Its coastline is divided among four countries: Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.
Sharm El Sheikh 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 as of 2023. 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. Sharm El Sheikh is one of the Asian cities of Egypt.
A shark attack is an attack on a human by a shark. Every year, around 80 unprovoked attacks are reported worldwide. Despite their rarity, many people fear shark attacks after occasional serial attacks, such as the Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916, and horror fiction and films such as the Jaws series. Out of more than 500 shark species, only three of them are responsible for a double-digit number of fatal, unprovoked attacks on humans: the great white, tiger, and bull. The oceanic whitetip has probably killed many more castaways, but these are not recorded in the statistics.
Hurghada is a coastal city that serves as the largest city and capital of the Red Sea Governorate of Egypt. Hurghada has grown from a small fishing village to one of the largest resort destinations along the Red Sea coast, stretching close to 40 km.
Dahab is a small Egyptian town on the southeast coast of the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, approximately 80 km (50 mi) northeast of Sharm el-Sheikh.
SS Thistlegorm was a British cargo steamship that was built in North East England in 1940 and sunk by German bomber aircraft in the Red Sea in 1941. Her wreck near Ras Muhammad is now a well-known diving site.
The 2005 Sharm El Sheikh bombings were committed by Islamist group Abdullah Azzam Brigades on 23 July 2005 in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm El Sheikh, at the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula. Eighty-eight people were killed by the three bombings, the majority of them Egyptians, and over 200 were injured, making the attack the deadliest terrorist action in the history of Egypt, until it was surpassed by the 2017 Sinai mosque attack.
Marsa Alam is a tourist town in south-eastern Egypt, located on the western shore of the Red Sea. It is currently seeing fast increasing popularity as a tourist destination and development following the opening of Marsa Alam International Airport in 2003. Marsa Alam is considered one of the newly established towns, as its development began in 1995 through the investments of Kuwaiti Al-Kharafi Group, which Established the town with all its facilities, resorts and infrastructure, to make Marsa Alam one of the most attractive places in Egypt for tourism. The town is located on an area of 38,433 km2, 274 km south of Hurghada, and 134 km south of Qusayr, and its 60 meters above sea level. It is inhabited by about 11,497 residents.
Ras Sedr is an Egyptian town located on the Gulf of Suez and the Red Sea coast. It is a part of the South Sinai Governorate, and consists of three areas: Wadi Sedr, Abu Sedr and Soerp. The region has been known since ancient biblical times. Ras Sudr was the last point of Sinai that was conquered by the Israelis on 8 June 1967 during the Six Day War, the town had a readily event known as the Ras Sedr massacre when Israelis killed Egyptian POW’s.
Ras Muhammad is a national park in Egypt at the southern extreme of the Sinai Peninsula, overlooking the Gulf of Suez on the west and the Gulf of Aqaba to the east. The park is becoming a center of eco-tourism in the region.
The Red Sea Riviera, Egypt's eastern coastline along the Red Sea, consists of resort cities on the western shore of the Gulf of Aqaba and along the eastern coast of mainland Egypt, south of the Gulf of Suez. The combination of a favorable climate, warm sea, thousands of kilometers of shoreline, and abundant natural and archaeological points of interest makes this stretch of Egypt's coastline a popular national and international tourist destination. There are numerous National Parks along the Red Sea Riviera, both underwater and on land. Desert and marine life are protected by several laws, and visitors may be subject to heavy fines for not abiding.
The Taba Border Crossing, also known in Israel as the Menachem Begin Crossing, is an international border crossing between Taba, in Egypt, and Eilat, in Israel. The Taba Border Crossing is the southernmost point in Israel.
Tourism is one of the leading sources of income, crucial to Egypt's economy. At its peak in 2010, the sector employed about 12% of workforce of Egypt, serving approximately 14.7 million visitors to Egypt, and providing revenues of nearly $12.5 billion as well as contributing more than 11% of GDP and 14.4% of foreign currency revenues.
El Ikhwa Islands, commonly known as Brothers Islands, are two small Red Sea islands in the Red Sea Governorate of Egypt.
Black December refers to at least nine shark attacks on humans causing six deaths that occurred along the coast of Natal Province in the Union of South Africa, from December 18, 1957, to April 5, 1958.
Metrojet Flight 9268 was an international chartered passenger flight, operated by Russian airline Kogalymavia. On 31 October 2015, at 06:13 local time EST, the Airbus A321-231 operating the flight exploded above the northern Sinai Peninsula following its departure from Sharm El Sheikh International Airport, Egypt en route to Pulkovo Airport, Saint Petersburg, Russia. All 224 passengers and crew on board died. The cause of the crash was most likely an onboard explosive device as concluded by Russian investigators.
On 14 July 2017 Abdel-Rahman Shaaban, a former university student from the Nile Delta region, swam from a public beach to each of two resort hotel beaches at Hurghada on the Red Sea and stabbed five German, one Armenian and one Czech tourists, all women, killing two German women. The Czech tourist died on 27 July. The perpetrator shouted that the Egyptian hotel personnel who gave pursuit after the stabbings at the second beach should "Stay back, I am not after Egyptians". Nevertheless, hotel personnel pursued and captured the attacker.
Terrorism and tourism in Egypt is when terrorist attacks are specifically aimed at Egypt's tourists. These attacks often end in fatalities and injuries and have an immediate and sometimes lasting effect on the industry. Attacks take many forms; blowing up an airplane carrying tourists, drive-by shootings of tourists, knife attacks on tourists and suicide bombings in a location where tourists are congregated. On the timeline of these events, the 1997 Luxor Massacre stands out - 62 tourists were ambushed and killed.
