The Suez Canal connects the Red Sea with the Mediterranean and shortens the passage between Asia to Europe from previously 24 to 16 days. Constructed in the second half of the 19th century as a ditch canal, it cuts through the Isthmus of Suez as one of the most highly frequented shipping routes globally and an important source of foreign currency revenue for the Egyptian state. It has brought forth multiple generations of cities: Suez, Ismailia and Port Said in the 19th century, Port Fouad in the 20th and New Suez and New Ismailia in the 21st century. With a population increase of currently roughly 1 million new inhabitants every 10 months and a loss of agricultural land due to urbanization of the Nile Valley, the governmental agenda since the 1970s has been to move away from the Nile to urbanize the desert in varying degrees in combination with industrial development and decoupled land reclamation. Global push-and-pull factors around the Suez Canal inform a discussion around how this large-scale infrastructure aligns with a legacy of the megaproject within the Egyptian context, how colonization around it links to the national urban development agenda, and thirdly, the socio-ecological challenges and potentials related to its current reliance on an industrial logic. The assessment of various risks pertaining to the Suez Canal Development, e.g. climate change, is the first step in identifying potential resilience measures to mitigate adverse impacts on the Suez Canal region’s potential trans-industrial future.