Alexandria’s rebirth began when Muḥammad ʿAlī was appointed Ottoman viceroy and pasha of Egypt in 1805. Seeking to use Egypt as a base from which to expand his own power, he reopened Alexandria’s access to the Nile by building the 45-mile- (72-km-) long Al-Maḥmūdiyyah Canal (completed between 1818 and 1820), as well as an arsenal in which to locally produce the warships intended to rebuild his fleet. Some Egyptians were conscripted into the urban labour force, but most were drawn by the expanding economic opportunities. Foreign traders were encouraged by the Capitulations, which gave them certain legal rights and privileges (for instance, to be tried in their own courts), and they too began to settle in the city. Cotton was introduced into Egypt in the 1820s, and by the 1840s Europe’s growing appetite for the commodity was making Alexandria rich. The city became an increasingly important banking and commercial centre. The opening of the Cairo railway in 1856, the cotton boom created by the American Civil War in the early 1860s, and the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, which reestablished Egypt as the principal staging post to India, led to another cycle of growth and to a rapid increase in both the indigenous and foreign populations.

The British bombardment of the city in 1882 to put down a local nationalist revolt led directly to the British occupation that lasted until 1922. The city nevertheless continued to prosper and expand, retaining its position as the second city and summer capital of Egypt. Under British patronage the foreign community—some 100,000 strong—continued to flourish. A self-governing municipality, founded in 1890, undertook several notable projects; among these were the creation of the Greco-Roman Museum, the construction of a public library, improvements in the street and sewage systems, and the reclamation of land from the sea, upon which the waterfront Corniche was later laid out. The municipal franchise was, however, extremely restricted; the city council was controlled by a coterie of European and Levantine merchants and property owners, despite the fact that the great majority of Alexandria’s inhabitants were Egyptian.

During World War I, Alexandria was the chief Allied naval base of the eastern Mediterranean. The city was much more actively involved in World War II, as it came perilously close to being captured by Axis armies and was repeatedly bombarded. British forces left the city in 1946.

Alexandria meanwhile played its part in the nationalist struggle between and after the world wars. In 1952 it was the point of departure from Egyptian soil for King Farouk after he was deposed in the revolution led by the Alexandria-born Gamal Abdel Nasser. In 1956 the failure of the tripartite British, French, and Israeli attack on Egypt, following President Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal, led to the seizure of French and British assets. Subsequent laws mandating the Egyptianization of foreign-owned banks, firms, and insurance companies resulted in the departure of thousands of foreign residents.

During the 1960s, Alexandria benefited from Nasser’s industrialization program; this boon was felt especially in the food-processing and textile-manufacturing industries, which had expanded considerably between the wars. The city was adversely affected by Egypt’s devastating defeat by Israel in the Six-Day War (June 1967; see Arab-Israeli wars), by the dislocation created when the Suez Canal was closed as a result of the war, and by the evacuation of Egyptian residents from the canal zone. Alexandria’s port became swamped by trade diverted from Port Said, and it had not fully recovered when in 1974 the Egyptian government introduced an open-door trade policy that led to a flood of consumer imports.

Liberalization, coupled with tentative moves at decentralization under Anwar Sadat, Nasser’s successor, revived calls by the merchant community for greater financial autonomy. These in turn created a new sense of civic identity and pride. The discovery in 1976 of natural gas reserves offshore and in the Nile delta spurred industrial development; the principal beneficiary was Al-Dukhaylah, which became a major iron and steel centre. In addition, refinery facilities underwent a number of upgrades, especially after the completion of a crude-oil pipeline from the city of Suez to the Mediterranean near Alexandria in the late 1970s and of another pipeline linking Musṭurud (north of Cairo) with Alexandria.

Alexandria’s access to the outside world has also been promoted to encourage the development of light industry. A free-trade zone was established in Al-ʿĀmiriyyah. Although Alexandria’s stock and cotton exchanges were closed in the 1960s, the stock exchange was later allowed to reopen. The city launched a master plan designed to bring major civic improvements. Work on these projects was partly responsible for a renewed interest in Alexandria’s cultural heritage in the 1990s, as wide-scale demolition to make way for new construction revealed layers of the ancient city long thought to be lost. In particular, archaeological surveys along the waterfront near Alexandria revealed a trove of ancient ruins, some of which have been retrieved. Efforts have also been made to document and protect the city’s historic architecture, most notably by architect Mohamed Awad, head of the Alexandria Preservation Trust. The revival of the city’s ancient library, a project first proposed in the 1970s, materialized with the opening of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in 2002.