The old names of the town were
Nimoui (, from ) and
Gazirat al-Hagar (). In May 1963, the ferry boat Adel capsized here, killing 206 people. In June 2007, 11-year-old schoolgirl Budour Ahmed Shaker died at a private clinic in Maghagha after an excessive dose of
anesthesia while undergoing the procedure of
female genital cutting, sparking widespread protests and prompting the Egyptian government to outlaw the practice by closing a legal loophole allowing it to be performed for "documented health reasons". The ban instead drove the practice underground, with doctors charging higher fees to compensate for the risk of being prosecuted. The
1885 Census of Egypt recorded Maghagha (as
Maghaghah) as a
nahiyah in under the district of
El Fashn in
Minya Governorate; at that time, the population of the town was 3,126 (1,548 men and 1,578 women). In 1888, a travel guide by the British publishing house
John Murray described Maghagha as possessing one of the most important
sugar factories in Egypt, with large tracts around the town being devoted to the cultivation of
cane sugar, although the amount of sugar produced at the factory had diminished in recent years. There was a
branch line connecting Maghagha to
Aba al-Waqf and
Beni Mazar; it was used to transport cane sugar to
sugar mills during the harvest season. The guide also described several ancient ruins in the area, with a cemetery for
dog mummies. Just upstream from Maghagha was a rock called the
Hagar es-Salaam, or "stone of welfare", in the Nile near the shore. Local boatmen claimed that no journey down the Nile would be prosperous until passing this rock. ==Villages==