Port Said was founded in 1859 and named after the Governor of Egypt, Sa‘id Pasha (1854–1863). Initially it housed foreign engineers and workers of the Suez Canal. Upon its inauguration in 1869, the Suez Canal was the main connection between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea — and further to India and South Asia — which replaced the long and costly trip around the south of Africa. Port Said thus became the Canal’s main harbour and principal coal station. During the later decades of the nineteenth century, it attracted foreign consuls and representatives of foreign business operations, coal workers and service personnel. Like many other cities in the colonized world, it was a divided city, as Egyptians and Europeans inhabited different neighbourhoods. From a modest beginning of 10,000 inhabitants in 1869, it became a city of 100,000 in the interwar period.