Arish or El-Arish (Egyptian Arabic: العريش, romanized: al-ʿArīš, Egyptian Arabic pronunciation: [elʕæˈɾiːʃ]) is the capital and largest city of the North Sinai Governorate of Egypt, as well as the largest city on the Sinai Peninsula, lying on the Mediterranean coast 344 kilometres (214 mi) northeast of Cairo and 45 kilometres (28 mi) west of the Egypt–Gaza border. Its estimated population was 204,391 in 2023.
In antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, the city was known as Rinokoroura (Ancient Greek: Ῥινοκόρουρα, Coptic: ϩⲣⲓⲛⲟⲕⲟⲣⲟⲩⲣⲁ). ʻArīsh is located at the mouth of Wadi al-Arish, a 250 kilometres (160 mi) long ephemeral watercourse. The Azzaraniq Protectorate is on the eastern side of ʻArīsh.
There are several hypothetical possibilities for the origin of the modern name of the city, which is first mentioned under it in the 9th century. One possibility is that the name might be an Arab phonetic transcription of a pre-existing toponym. However, there is no name that fully qualifies as such, apart from the Ariza (Ancient Greek: Αριζα) of Hierokles, which is difficult to interpret.
Another possibility is that the name el-Arish was given to a city that already existed in the Byzantine period. However, no Arab source mentions such a change of name for any city in the region, and there is no plausible explanation for this change.
A third possibility is that the name el-Arish was created when a new settlement of some "huts" (Arabic: عرش, romanized: ʕarš) was established in the 7th or 8th century. It is possible that the city of Rinokoloura fell into ruins in the first half of the 7th century, and a new community arose that the new inhabitants started to call el-Arish, after their poor living conditions.
M. Ignace de Rossi derived the Arabic name from the Egyptian ϫⲟⲣϣⲁ(ⲓ), Jorsha, 'noseless', an analogue of Greek Rinocorura.
A Coptic-Arabic colophon dating to 1616 mentions the writer "Solomon of Shorpo, son of Michael, from the city of Mohonon" (ⲥⲱⲗⲟⲙⲟⲛ ⲛϣⲱⲣⲡⲟ ⲡϣⲏⲣⲓ ⲙⲓⲭⲁⲏⲗ ⲛⲧⲉ ⲡⲟⲗⲓⲥ ⲙⲟϩⲟⲛⲟⲛ); in the Arabic version, the writer is identified as being "of el-Arish". Timm raises the possibility that Shorpo (Coptic: ϣⲱⲣⲡⲟ) may be another name for el-Arish.
Arish is in the northern Sinai, about 50 kilometres (31 mi) from the Rafah Border Crossing with the Gaza Strip. North Sinai is targeted by Egyptian government planners to divert population growth from the high-density Nile Delta. It is proposed that by completing infrastructure, transportation and irrigation projects, three million Egyptians may be settled in North Sinai. Arish is considered part of Bilad al-Sham. Arish is the closest city to Lake Bardawil.
Its Köppen climate classification is hot desert (BWh), although prevailing Mediterranean winds moderate its temperatures, typical to the rest of the northern coast of Egypt. The highest record temperature was 45 °C (113 °F), recorded on May 29, 2003, while the lowest record temperature was −6 °C (21 °F), recorded on January 8, 1994.
Herodotus describes a city named Ienysos (Ancient Greek: Ιηνυσος) located between Lake Serbonis and Kadytis. It is possible that Ienysos is the predecessor of Rinokoloura, but there is no clear evidence to support this identification.
The foundation of the city is closely linked to the etymology of its name. The explanation given by the classic authors is that it comes from a compound of "nose" (Ancient Greek: ῥίς) and "curtail, cut short" (Ancient Greek: κολούω).
Thus modern scholars, following the version given by Seneca, believe that in the 4th century BC, a Persian king, believed to be either Artaxerxes II or Artaxerxes III, conducted a campaign in Syria where he punished people, possibly a tribe, by mutilating their noses. As a result, the places where these people came from or relocated to were given new names that reflected their disfigurement. While the Greek name Rinokoloura may have existed from the outset, it is possible that it was a translation of a name with the same meaning in another language.
When the city became a part of the Ptolemaic Empire, an Egyptian tradition emerged that may have transformed the Persian king into an Ethiopian king named Actisanes. First mentioned by Diodorus, who based his information on the Aegyptiaca of Hecataeus of Abdera, written in the 4th century BC, Actisanes conquered Egypt during the reign of king Amasis. He governed Egypt with justice and benevolence, and instead of executing convicted criminals, he had their noses cut off and relocated them to a city at the desert's edge, near the border between Egypt and Syria.
In Ptolemaic Egypt, Rinocoroura was considered the last city of Egypt, on the border with Coele-Syria.
During the second invasion of Antiochus IV in the spring of 168 BCE, an embassy of Ptolemy VI met him near Rinokoloura, which in about 79 BCE came under the rule of the Judaean Kingdom of Alexander Jannaeus, while in 40 BCE, Herod I sought refuge in Rinokoloura on his way to Pelusium, where he received news of his brother's death.
The Oxyrhynchus papyrus, traditionally referred to as 'an invocation of Isis' or 'a Greek Isis litany,' is believed to have been transcribed during the reigns of Trajan or Hadrian, but its composition dates back to the late 1st century. This text contains numerous invocations of Isis and mentions Rinokoloura, where she is called 'all-seeing' (Ancient Greek: παντόπτιν).
A number of funerary steles with a repeated consolation formula "nobody is immortal" (Ancient Greek: ούδείς άθάνατος) were found in and around the city.
The earliest reliable Christian reference to Rinokoloura can be found in Athanasius's Epistula ad Serapionem, in which Salomon was appointed as bishop of Rinokoloura, possibly in 339 AD. Sozomen also refers to Rinokoloura in the mid-5th century AD, stating that the city was a center of scholarship, with a meditation school (Ancient Greek: φροντιστήριον) located in the desert north of the city, a church illuminated by oil lamps, and an episcopal dwelling where the entire clergy of the city resided and dined together.