Maghagha

The old names of the town were Nimoui (Arabic: نموى, from Coptic: ⲛⲓⲙⲟⲩⲓ, lit. 'islands') and Gazirat al-Hagar (Arabic: جزيرة الحجر, lit. 'stone islands').^[1]

In May 1963, the ferry boat Adel capsized here, killing 206 people.

In June 2007, 11-year-old schoolgirl Budour Ahmed Shaker died at a private clinic in Maghagha after an excessive dose of anesthesia while undergoing the procedure of female genital cutting, sparking widespread protests and prompting the Egyptian government to outlaw the practice by closing a legal loophole allowing it to be performed for "documented health reasons". The ban instead drove the practice underground, with doctors charging higher fees to compensate for the risk of being prosecuted.^[2]

The 1885 Census of Egypt recorded Maghagha (as Maghaghah) as a nahiyah in under the district of El Fashn in Minya Governorate; at that time, the population of the town was 3,126 (1,548 men and 1,578 women).^[3]

In 1888, a travel guide by the British publishing house John Murray described Maghagha as possessing one of the most important sugar factories in Egypt, with large tracts around the town being devoted to the cultivation of cane sugar, although the amount of sugar produced at the factory had diminished in recent years. There was a branch line connecting Maghagha to Aba al-Waqf and Beni Mazar; it was used to transport cane sugar to sugar mills during the harvest season. The guide also described several ancient ruins in the area, with a cemetery for dog mummies. Just upstream from Maghagha was a rock called the Hagar es-Salaam, or "stone of welfare", in the Nile near the shore. Local boatmen claimed that no journey down the Nile would be prosperous until passing this rock.^[4]

• Aba al-Waqf
• Ashnin
• Beni Khaled
• Bortbat El Gabal
• Dahmro
• Deir el-Garnus
• El A'bor
• El Kom El Akhdar
• Malatya
• Mayana El Wakf
• Sharona
• Tanbdy