Aswan Governorate Aswan Governorate Aswan Governorate ( ) is one of the governorates of Egypt. The southernmost governorate in Upper Egypt, its capital is Aswan. The Aswan Governorate borders Qena to the north, Red Sea Governorate to the east, New Valley Governorate to the west, and Sudan's Northern state to the south. It has a population of 1,394,687 inhabitants (2014), and occupies an area of 62,726 km². The rate of poverty is more than 60% in this governorate but recently some social safety networks have been provided in the form of financial assistance and job opportunities. The funding has been coordinated by
Aswan Low Dam in the lower Nile. The dam, originally limited in height by conservation concerns, worked as designed, but provided inadequate storage capacity for planned development and was raised twice, between 1907 and 1912 and again in 1929–1933. These heightenings still did not meet irrigation demands and in 1946 it was nearly over-topped in an effort to maximize pool elevation. This led to the investigation and construction of the Aswan High Dam upstream. The earliest recorded attempt to build a dam near Aswan was in the 11th century, when the Arab polymath and engineer Ibn al-Haytham (known as "Alhazen" in the West)