Dam1etta (Arab. Damiat; anc. Tamiathis), a town of Lower Egypt, on the right bank of the E. branch of the Nile, 6 m. from its mouth, and 100 m. N. N. E. of Cairo; pop. in 1871, 28,913, of whom 50 were foreigners. Its general appearance is that of a straggling collection of poorly built houses, relieved by magnificent mosques, bazaars, and marble baths, with a few brick dwellings of a better sort on terraces near the river. It has a military school for 400 military officers, founded by Mehemet Ali, a cotton-spinning factory, a large rice mill, and a good coasting and interior trade in dried and salted fish from Lake Menzaleh, rice, coffee, beans, dates, flax, linen, etc. It was once famous for the manufacture of leather and striped cloth, and the name of dimity is supposed to be derived from it. Its foreign commerce was formerly large, but is new merged in that of Alexandria. Its harbor is bad, and is inaccessible to large vessels, owing to a bar at the mouth of the Nile. - The ancient town of Damietta stood about 5 m. nearer the sea than the present. Under the Saracens it rose to great importance, and the crusaders, looking upon it as the bulwark of Egypt on the Mediterranean side, made it the object of many attacks.

In one of these sieges it was captured by Louis IX. of France (1249); but the victorious monarch, having fallen soon after into the hands of the Arabs, was forced to purchase his freedom by restoring the city to its former owners. The sultan of Egypt, because of its exposed position, razed it to the ground, built the present city, and blocked up that mouth of the Nile by which it communicates with the sea.