Assiut Barrage

The Assiut Barrage sits just north of the city centre, where the Nile splits over a wide weir feeding the Ibrahimiya Canal. The old early-1900s barrage is a long line of stone arches; the new one beside it, completed in 2018 with German financing, generates electricity and lets ships pass through a modern lock.

It's not a tourist site in any formal sense, but the corniche along the river here is the most pleasant place in town to walk at sunset, with views of the barrage and the green fields on the far bank.

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The original Assiut Barrage was built by the British in 1902 to divert water into the Ibrahimiya Canal, the longest irrigation canal in the world. A new barrage with a hydroelectric plant opened alongside it in 2018, but the old British structure still spans the Nile next door.