El Gouna

This guide to El Gouna traces satellite images of this coastline from bare desert sand in 1985 to an intricate maze of dredged islands and canals a decade later. It follows Samih Sawiris, an Egyptian engineer who set out in 1989 planning a few beach houses and a private marina, and the practical math about hospitals and petrol stations that turned his simple retreat into a purpose-built town. He first sailed this empty coast in 1989, years before any of it existed.