EQUATORIAL GUINEA

EQUATORIAL GUINEA / GUINEA ECUATORIAL.

Centenary of the death of Ferdinand de Lesseps.
Map of the Suez Canal area and portrait of Lesseps.
Second stamp in a set of 4, issued in 1994.
Face value: 500 Central African CFA francs.
Printed by F,N.M.T. (Fábrica Nacional de Moneda y Timbre), Madrid.
Printing: Offset lithography.
Print: 75,000 copies.

Catalogues
- Edifil No. 193.
- Michel No. 1789.
- Scott No. 203.
- StampWorld No. 2017.
- Stanley Gibbons No. 212.
- Yvert et Tellier No. 319.

Ferdinand Marie, Viscount de Lesseps (Versailles, November 19, 1805 - Guilly, Indre, central France, December 7, 1894) was a French diplomat and later developer of the Suez Canal. In the 1880s he planned a Panama Canal at sea level, but the project failed due to epidemics of malaria and yellow fever in the area, as well as financial problems: with another design it could be inaugurated in 1914. As a diplomat he was Consul in Cairo and Alexandria (1833-1837), Rotterdam, Malaga, Barcelona (1842-1848), and Minister of France in Madrid (1848-1849).

The Suez Canal (in Arabic, قناة السويس) is a navigable canal located in Egypt that connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea. Its length is 163.30 km (120.11 miles) between Port Saíd (on the Mediterranean coast) and Suez (on the Red Sea coast). The canal excavation works officially began on April 10, 1859, promoted by Lesseps. It was solemnly inaugurated on November 17, 1869.