The city was founded in the early 20th century, and until recently it was a small fishing village.
But since the 1980s, it has been continually enlarged by Egyptian and foreign investors to become the leading coastal resort on the Red Sea.

The resort is a destination for Egyptian tourists from Cairo, the Delta and Upper Egypt, as well as package holiday tourists from Europe.
Today Hurghada counts 248,000 inhabitants and is divided into:

-El Ahia and El Helal, the northern part;
-El Dahar (Downtown) is the old part;
-Sekalla is the city center;
-El Kawsar is the modern part;
-El Memsha (Village road) is pedestrian road stretching over 4 km.