"Sudan is not a country, it is a continent", say
the Sudanese. Sudan covers more than 2.5 million square kilometres, an
area larger than Ontario and Quebec combined. Located directly to the south
of Egypt, this vast country is also bordered by the Red Sea to the northeast,
Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, Kenya, Uganda and Zaire to the south
and Central African Republic, Chad and Libya to the west.
Sudan, surrounded by mountains, is like a huge, wide bowl. Lush and tropical in the south, the land slopes down toward the Sahara desert in the north. The waters of the Nile are the main source of irrigation and Sudan's lifeline. From the humid southern forests, the wide river flows northward through the enormous Sudd swamp region. At Khartoum the branches of the Blue Nile and White Nile meet to form the main stream of the Nile, which flows north through the desert in a giant S-curve to Egypt. |
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In the desert north of Khartoum, the average summer
temperatures reach 40°C. The southwestern rain forests have average
temperatures of about 26°C. The summer rainy season in the central
farming area depends on the haboob winds from the Congo River Basin.
These winds come each year creating a violent dust storm that throws up
walls of sand and reduces visibility to zero. At times the winds and rains
are delayed, or do not come at all. This causes drought and famine. In
the 1970s and 1980s, these winds failed, bringing economic disaster.
Animal life in the south is typical of the African savannas and includes lions, rhinoceroses, leopards, zebras, giraffes, crocodiles, hippopotamuses, monkeys and antelopes. In the north about five million people live in the largest urban clusters of Khartoum, Khartoum North and nearby Omdurman, situated at the junction of the rivers. In 1988, the worst floods of the 20th century struck the urban area around Khartoum. Two million people were left homeless. |
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