Northern, Sudan — Towns & Travel Guide

What is Northern known for?

The ground that makes up Northern State was known in ancient times as Nubia, and the territory passed through successive ancient and medieval polities, among them the Kingdom of Kush and later the Mahdist State. It is the largest wilaya by area. That size, together with the Egyptian border along the north and the boundary with Libya on the west, is what sets it apart from the other wilayat of Sudan.

Where is Northern?

Northern State is the largest of Sudan's wilayat by area, reaching from the Egyptian border in the north to North Kordofan in the south. Two countries border it. Egypt lies across the northern boundary and Libya across the west, while River Nile State, Khartoum State, North Kordofan and North Darfur account for the internal edges.

The Wadi Halfa Salient sits on the Egyptian boundary and is recorded as disputed. Nubia is the name the ancient record gives this ground. The area that makes up the state carried that name in antiquity, and the territory later fell within the Kingdom of Kush and, far nearer the modern era, the Mahdist State.

No mountain or river is named inside it. The file gives an area figure, a border list and the historical names, so what a map of Northern State shows is a very large block of country with Egypt above it and Libya to the west. North Darfur closes the southwest.

River Nile State runs along the eastern side and Khartoum State touches the southeastern corner, which places Northern State against four wilayat of Sudan as well as two countries.

What is Northern like?

Nubia gives the state its deepest layer. The ancient name attached to this ground long before the wilaya system, and it is the label under which the territory appears in accounts of the region's early history. Kush followed.

The Kingdom of Kush counted the area among its holdings, one of a run of ancient and medieval polities that took in this stretch of country before the Mahdist State did so in the modern era. Arabic is the language of the state. That sits alongside a naming history in which the same ground has been Nubia, part of Kush and part of the Mahdist State, each label belonging to a different order of things.

The file names not one building. Nubia, Kush and the Mahdist State are carried as historical facts rather than as places to visit, and no temple, tomb or town is set down anywhere inside Northern State. The Wadi Halfa Salient is the one named feature.

It lies on the boundary with Egypt and the record marks it as disputed, which is all the file says about it and all that can properly be said here.

What is the history of Northern?

Nubia comes first in the record. The ground now organised as Northern State was known by that name in ancient times, and it then passed through a succession of ancient and medieval polities including the Kingdom of Kush. The Mahdist State came much later.

That is the modern-era entry the file makes, and beyond those names it gives no founding year for the wilaya itself and no date for any boundary it holds.

What is the climate of Northern?

Weather is not part of this record. Northern State reaches from the Egyptian boundary down towards North Kordofan across the largest area of any Sudanese wilaya, and the file offers no band, no rainfall note and no seasonal reading for any part of it. Its neighbours give the only frame.

Egypt above, Libya to the west and North Darfur, North Kordofan, Khartoum State and River Nile State around the rest of it leave Northern State without a coast of its own anywhere on its perimeter.

How do you get to Northern?

Six boundaries, no named town. An approach into Northern State is described by the line it crosses: Egypt from the north, Libya from the west, North Darfur and North Kordofan from the south, and River Nile State or Khartoum State from the east. The northern crossing carries a caveat.

The Wadi Halfa Salient lies on the boundary between the state and Egypt and the record marks it as disputed, so the northern approach is not a simple line on a map. Nothing on the register covers transport.