Dimyāṭ

Damietta stands on the eastern branch of the Nile a short way from the Mediterranean, and for centuries its river mouth made it the gateway to Egypt. The Byzantines raided it repeatedly, and after one sack in 853 the caliph al-Mutawakkil gave it walls. King Amalric of Jerusalem besieged it with a Byzantine fleet in 1169 and failed, after which the city was given further walls.

The crusaders came back in the thirteenth century. They took Damietta in November 1219 after a long siege, when only about 3,000 of its 70,000 inhabitants are said to have survived. Louis IX of France captured it again in 1249, but gave it up in 1250 as part of his ransom. The Mamluks then pulled down the exposed old city and built a new town farther from the sea. Under Ottoman rule Damietta remained a trading port, governed by an officer in charge of maritime affairs.