صفحة جديدة 1

LOCATION

Sudan (sOOdăn') [key], officially Republic of Sudan, is located NE Africa (15 00 N, 30 00 E) with a total area of 2,505,813 sq km (land: 2,376,000 sq km [94.8%]

water: 129,810 sq km [5.2%]), is the largest country in Africa and tenth largest in the world.

LAND BOUNDARIES

Sudan's land boundaries total (7,687 km) bordering on 9 countries namely; Egypt (1,273 km) in the north, on Eritrea (605 km) and Ethiopia (1,606 km) in the east, on Kenya (232 km), Uganda (435 km), and Democratic Republic of the Congo (628 km) in the south, on the Central African Republic (1,165 km) and Chad (1,360 km) in the west, on Libya (383 km) in the northwest and the Red Sea (coast line: 853 km) in the northeast.

CAPITAL

Khartoum (15 36 N, 32 32 E) is the capital (time difference: GMT+3) and Omdurman is the largest city.

NILE RIVER

The main geographical feature of Sudan is the Nile River, which, with its tributaries (including the Atbara, [the Blue Nile {joined by the rivers Dinder and Rahad}, and the White Nile rivers which meet in Khartoum]), traverses the country from south to north. The Nile system provides irrigation for strips of agricultural settlement for much of its course in Sudan and also for the Al Gezira plain, situated between the White Nile and the Blue Nile, just south of their confluence at Khartoum. In the extreme north, the Nile broadens into Lake Nasser, formed by the Aswan High Dam in South Egypt flowing northwards to the Mediterranean Sea.

TERRAIN

The terrain is generally flat broken by an undulating plateau (1,000–2,000 ft/305–610 m high), which rises to higher levels in the mountains located in the northeast near the Red Sea, as well as in the central, western (Jebel Marra (3,042 m [9,980 ft])is the highest range), and extreme southern portions of the country. The highest point in Sudan is Kinyeti (10,456 ft/3,187 m), in the southeast.

CLIMATE

The amount of rainfall increases towards the south. In the north there is the very dry Nubian desert; in the south there are swamps and rainforest. Sudan’s rainy season lasts for about three months (July to September) in the north, and up to six months (June to November) in the south. The dry regions are plagued by sand storms, known as haboob, which can completely block out the sun.

ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISIONS

Sudan is divided into twenty-six states (wilayat, sing. wilayah) which in turn are subdivided into 133 districts. The states its capitals and districts are: