Suez canal connects which of the following ?
1. Atlantic Ocean
2. Red Sea
3. Mediterranean Sea
4. Indian Ocean
Select the correct answer from the code given below :

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — B, 2 and 3 (the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea). The Suez Canal is an artificial waterway about 193.3 km long cut across the Isthmus of Suez in Egypt. Its northern mouth is at Port Said on the Mediterranean Sea; its southern mouth is at the city of Suez on the Gulf of Suez, which is the north-western arm of the Red Sea. Those two water bodies — and only those two — are what the canal itself joins. Opened on 17 November 1869, it is a sea-level canal with no locks, so seawater flows freely along it, and it threads through a chain of natural lakes (Lake Manzala, Lake Timsah, the Great Bitter Lake and the Little Bitter Lake) that were incorporated into the cut. Its importance is that it removes the voyage around Africa's Cape of Good Hope from the Europe-to-Asia route.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) This keeps the correct northern terminus (the Mediterranean) but pairs it with the Atlantic Ocean. The Mediterranean does reach the Atlantic — but through the natural Strait of Gibraltar, at the far western end of the sea, roughly 3,000 km from Port Said. The Atlantic is therefore two steps beyond the canal, not one of the water bodies it connects.  (c) Again the Mediterranean end is right, but the southern end is given as the Indian Ocean. The canal ends at the Gulf of Suez on the Red Sea; a ship must still run the full length of the Red Sea and pass the Bab-el-Mandeb strait into the Gulf of Aden before it reaches the Arabian Sea and the open Indian Ocean. This is the most tempting wrong option because the canal is popularly described as the Europe-to-Asia short cut.  (d) Half right and half wrong: the Red Sea is indeed the canal's southern terminus, but the Atlantic Ocean is not its northern one — that is the Mediterranean Sea, at Port Said. Since the code demands both items be correct, this fails.

Concept: The Suez Canal is a man-made, sea-level, lock-free waterway across the narrow Isthmus of Suez, joining the Mediterranean Sea in the north to the Red Sea in the south. Because it has no locks, water moves freely through it and tidal differences between the two ends drive weak currents. It was dug between 1859 and 1869 by the Suez Canal Company promoted by the French diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps, and it turned the Red Sea from a dead end into the main artery between Europe and Asia.

State PCS 2025 Q61 — Geography PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q61 — Geography PYQ with Answer