The city was founded in the early 20th century, and until a few years ago it was a small fishing village. But since the 1980s, it has been continuously enlarged by Egyptian and foreign investors to become the leading coastal resort on the Red Sea. Holiday villas and hotels provide aquatic sport facilities for windsurfers, kitesurfers, yachtsmen, scuba divers and snorkelers.
Hurghada is known for its watersports activities, nightlife and warm weather. Daily temperature hovers round 30 ° C (86 ° F) most of the year. Many Europeans have chosen Hurghada for their regular Holidays, particularly during the Winter season and spend their
Christmas and New Year holidays in the city.
Hurghada stretches for about 36 kilometers (22 mi) along the seashore, and it does not reach far into the surrounding desert. The resort is a destination for Egyptian tourists from Cairo, the Delta and Upper Egypt, as well as package holiday tourists from Europe. Today Hurghada counts 248,000 residents and is divided into:
El Ahia and El Helal, the northern part;
El Dahar (Downtown) is the old part;
Sekalla is the city center;
El Kawsar is the modern part;
El Memsha (Village road) is pedestrian road stretching over 4 km.
Along the El Mamsha you find many of Hurghada’s new hotels. Dahar is where the town’s traditional bazaar, the post office and the long-distance bus stations, Go Bus and Upper Egypt Bus are situated.
The city is served by the Hurghada International Airport with scheduled passenger traffic connecting to Cairo and directly with several cities in Europe.
