Historical cities and holy places

The High Dam: what it gave Egypt and what it cost

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Anorya Team · 14 déc. 2025 · 1 min read

It ended the flood, made a lake the size of a country, and changed the Nile permanently.

For as long as there had been an Egypt, the Nile flooded every summer, dropped silt across the valley, and receded. The High Dam, completed in 1970, ended that after five thousand years.

The High Dam: what it gave Egypt and what it cost

What it gave: control. No more catastrophic floods, no more famine years when the flood failed, a third more cultivable land through year-round irrigation, and hydroelectric power that at one point supplied about half the country's electricity. For a nation of that size these are not small things.

What it cost: Lake Nasser drowned Nubia and displaced around 100,000 people. The silt that had fertilised the valley annually now settles behind the dam, so Egyptian agriculture depends on imported fertiliser. The Delta, no longer replenished, is eroding and salt is pushing inland. Sardine fisheries in the Mediterranean collapsed when the nutrient flow stopped.

The High Dam: what it gave Egypt and what it costThe High Dam: what it gave Egypt and what it cost

But almost everything about modern Egypt, including which temples still exist and where a hundred thousand people live, was decided here.

Standing on it, none of that is obvious — it is a two-mile embankment with a lotus monument and a view. But almost everything about modern Egypt, including which temples still exist and where a hundred thousand people live, was decided here.

The High Dam: what it gave Egypt and what it cost
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