Zagazig has large cotton factories and used to have offices of numerous European merchants. It is located on the Muweis Canal and is the chief hub of the corn and cotton trade. There is a museum of antiquities, the Sharkeya National Museum (sometimes called the Amed Orabi Museum, at Herriat Raznah) that contains many important archaeological exhibits (currently closed for restoration). Zagazig University, one of the largest universities in Egypt, is also located in the city, with colleges in different fields of science and arts. The Archaeological Museum of the University of Zagazig exhibits significant finds from the nearby sites, Bubastis
North African communities of Paris Arab and Muslim countries. Naomi Davidson, author of "Only Muslim: Embodying Islam in Twentieth-Century France", wrote that as of the mid-20th Century "The "community" of Algerians, Moroccans, and Tunisians, however, was certainly not monolithic, as even the police acknowledged in their discussion of the North African "populations" of the Paris region". According to French police records, there have been Algerian and other North African residents of the 18th, 19th, and 20th arrondissements of Paris for nearly a century. Many North Africans settled in the city in the 1920s, making up the largest immigrant group to the city during that period.