Sudan (region)

The large landscape Sudan (Arabic بلاد السودان Bilād as- Sūdān, country of the blacks ') is located south of the Sahara in North Africa. It extends right up to the rain forest zone of Guinea coast and the Congo basin. The cultural- geographical area stretches from the Atlantic coast of North Africa over a distance of approximately 5500 kilometers to the Ethiopian highlands to the east. It is characterized by the transition between dry and rain forest zone with vegetation form savannah. The northern strip of the Sudan region is formed by the transition zone between the dry desert and the savannah and climate geographically referred to as the Sahel.

The mostly hilly landscape type, Sudan is divided by mountain ranges into three basins:

• In the west the Westsaharische basin, which is drained by the headwaters of the Niger and Senegal,
• In the middle of the endorheic Chad Basin with the Logone
• And in the east the basin of the White Nile.

History

In the western region of the United landscape Sudan developed very early state system ( Songhai, since the 4th century) and powerful kingdoms ( Mandinka ), which reached its zenith in the 16th century. In the middle range states were the Hausa ( Gobir, Katsina, Daura, Kano ) and Bornu and Kanem. In the eastern sector, Darfur joined and enabled via Sennar trade contacts with Nubia and Egypt.

Several important trans-Saharan routes led to the north. One led from Kanem ( in the area of ​​Lake Chad ) on Bilma and Murzuq to Tripoli. Of the commercial centers of the Hausa ( Katsina, Zinder ) is an important way via Agadez proceeded northward; other routes combined, situated near the Niger knee trading cities ( Gao, Timbuktu ) with the Maghreb (Agadir).

The ethnologist Leo Frobenius German first described Sudan as a culture ( From the glory of the Sudan, 1923).