The White Monastery is located roughly at on the west side of the Nile12 km from the present city of Sohag, which is 450.5 km south of Cairo, 201.5 km north of Luxor.

In addition to the core monastery, Shenute also presided over a neighboring monastery for women, the site of which has not been identified (Krawiec 2001).

Five kilometers to the north is the Red Monastery, now in a small village.

When these monasteries were founded, several earlier monasteries already stood on the opposite side of the river, near modern Akhmim (ancient Panopolis). several more came into existence later, one of which functions today.

In the Early Christian period, the largest city in this neighborhood was Panopolis (modern Akhmim) on the opposite bank of the Nile. Panopolis was a thriving center of industry, particularly textile making and stone carving. It was also a center of learning and, in the Early Christian period, a center of debate between various religious groups probably incuding pagans, gnostics, practitioners of magic, and monks.

The father of cenobitic monasticism, Pachomius, founded several monasteries in or near Akhmim in the early fourth century (see time line, and fourth century)..

Their sites have not been clearly determined, but it seems likely that one of them stood at or near the site of the present monastery of Dayr al-Shohada or Dayr al-Wustani, one of three monasteries(or dayrs) in a row northeast of the city near the villages of al-Hawawish and al-Salamuni. More monasteries sprang up later, including two in the Wadi Bir el Ain and those shown on this map (Gauthier 1905, etc.; Kuhlmann 1983; McNally 1998; Meinardus 1965: McNally and Schrunk 1993, Samuel al-Syriani 1990; Timm 1984).