Damietta

Damietta
Damietta's Corniche along the Nile.
Damietta Location in the Nile Delta
Coordinates: 31°25′N 31°49′E / 31.417°N 31.817°E / 31.417; 31.817
Country	Egypt
Governorate	Damietta
Elevation	5 m (16 ft)
Population (2012)
• City	337,303
• Metro	1,100,000
Time zone	EST (UTC+2)
Area code(s)	(+20) 57

Damietta (Egyptian Arabic: دمياط‎‎ Dumyāṭ , IPA: [domˈjɑːtˤ]), also known as Damiata, or Domyat, is a port and the capital of the Damietta Governorate in Egypt, a former bishopric and present multiple Catholic titular see. It is located at the Damietta branch, a distributary of the Nile, 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) from the Mediterranean Sea, about 200 kilometres (120 mi) north of Cairo.

In Ancient Egypt, the city was known as Tamiat, but in the Hellenistic period it was called Tamiathis (Greek Ταμίαθις). Mentioned by the 6th-century geographer Stephanus Byzantius, the town later became known as Damiata and as Damietta.

Under Caliph Omar (579–644), the Arabs took the town by treachery and successfully resisted the attempts by the Byzantine Empire to recover it, especially in 739, 821, 921 and 968. The Abbasids used Alexandria, Damietta, Aden and Siraf as entry ports to India and the Tang Empire of China. Damietta was an important naval base during the Abbasid, Tulunid and Fatimid periods. This led to several attacks by the Byzantine Empire, most notably the sack and destruction of the city in May 853.