Sudan (region)

Sudan بِلَادُ السُّوْدَان
An open hay landscape in the northern Gambia
West Sudanian savanna
Ecology
Borders	Sahara
Geography
Rivers	Chari, Niger, and the White Nile

Sudan is the geographical region to the south of the Sahara, stretching from Western Africa to Central and Eastern Africa. The name derives from the Arabic bilād as-sūdān (بلاد السودان‎) and arḍ as-sūdān (أَرْض السودان‎), both meaning "the lands of the Black [Africans]", referring to West Africa and northern Central Africa.^[1]

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History

According to some modern historians, of all the regions of Africa, western Sudan "is the one that has seen the longest development of agriculture, of markets and long-distance trade, and of complex political systems." It is also the first region "south of the Sahara where African Islam took root and flowered."^[2]

Middle Ages

Its medieval history is marked by the caravan trade.^[3] The sultanates of eastern Sudan were Darfur, Bagirmi, Sennar and Wadai. In central Sudan, Kanem–Bornu Empire and the Hausa Kingdoms. To the west were Wagadou, Manden, Songhay and the Mossi. ^[4]^[5]

Slave trade

Early on in the first millennium, many people from the Sudan were used as "a steady steam of slaves for the Mediterranean world" in the Saharan slave trade. With the arrival of the Portuguese in the fifteenth century, "people were directed to the Atlantic slave trade," totaling over a thousand years for the Saharan and four centuries for the Atlantic trades. As a result, slavery critically shaped the institutions and systems of the Sudan. The Portuguese first arrived at Senegambia and found that slavery was "well established" in the region, used to "feed the courts of coastal kings as it was used in the medieval empires of the interior." Between the process of capture, enslavement, and "incorporation into a new community, the slave had neither rights nor any social identity." As a result, the identity of people who were enslaved "came from membership in a corporate group, usually based on kinship."^[6]

Notes

^ International Association for the History of Religions (1959), Numen, Leiden: EJ Brill, p. 131, West Africa may be taken as the country stretching from Senegal in the west, to the Cameroons in the east; sometimes it has been called the central and western Sudan, the Bilad as-Sūdan, 'Land of the Blacks', of the Arabs.
^ Klein 1998, p. 1.
^ Encyclopaedia of Islam IX. pp. 752, 758.
^ Encyclopedia of African History and Culture, volume II. New York: Facts on File, 2005. 2005. p. 211. ISBN 0-8160-5270-0.
^ Gale. New Encyclopedia of Africa, volume 4. Farmington Hills. pp. 752, 758. ISBN 978-0-684-31458-7.
^ Klein 1998, p. 1-2.

References

Klein, Martin A. (1998). Slavery and Colonial Rule in French West Africa. Cambridge University Press.
Reader's Digest: Atlas of the World (1991), Rand-McNally, ISBN 0-276-42001-2.

v t e Regions of Africa
Central	Guinea region Gulf of Guinea Cape Lopez Mayombe Igboland Mbaise Pool Malebo Congo Basin Chad Basin Cameroonian Highlands forests East Sudanian savanna Congolian rainforests Ouaddaï highlands Ennedi Plateau
East	African Great Lakes Albertine Rift East African Rift Great Rift Valley Gregory Rift Rift Valley lakes Virunga Mountains Kavirondo Zanj East African montane forests Eastern Arc Mountains Serengeti Horn of Africa Afar Triangle Al-Habash Barbaria Danakil Alps Danakil Desert Ethiopian Highlands Dahlak Archipelago Hanish Islands Gulf of Aden Gulf of Tadjoura Red Sea Indian Ocean islands Comoro Islands Lamu Archipelago Madagascar Central Highlands Northern Highlands Zanzibar Archipelago Swahili coast
North	Eastern Desert Maghreb Ancient Libya Atlas Mountains Barbary Coast Gibraltar Arc Ifriqiya Nile Valley Nile Delta Bashmur Cataracts of the Nile Darfur Lower Egypt Lower Nubia Middle Egypt Nile Delta Nuba Mountains Nubia The Sudans Upper Egypt Tibesti Mountains Western Sahara
South	Rhodesia North South Thembuland Succulent Karoo Nama Karoo Bushveld Maputaland Highveld Fynbos Indian Ocean coastal belt Albany thickets Cape Floristic Region Skeleton Coast Kalahari Desert Okavango Delta Cape Peninsula False Bay
West	Pepper Coast Gold Coast Slave Coast Ivory Coast Cape Palmas Cape Mesurado Guinea region Guinean Forests of West Africa Upper Guinean forests Lower Guinean forests Guinean forest-savanna mosaic Guinea Highlands Gulf of Guinea Dahomey Gap Niger Basin Niger Delta Inner Niger Delta West Sudanian savanna Yorubaland
Macro-regions	Aethiopia Afromontane Arab world Commonwealth realm Equatorial Africa Françafrique Greater Middle East Guineo-Congolian region Islands of Africa List of countries where Arabic is an official language Mediterranean Basin MENASA Middle East Middle East and North Africa Miombo woodlands Mittelafrika Negroland Northeast Africa Portuguese-speaking African countries Sahara Sahel Southeast Africa Sub-Saharan Africa Sudan (region) Sudanian savanna Tropical Africa Zambezian region

This page was last edited on 7 January 2024, at 22:24

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