Red Sea, Sudan — Towns & Travel Guide

What is Red Sea known for?

The city is capital, largest settlement and principal seaport at once, and the quays there move most of Sudan's international trade, which makes this coastline the country's only outlet to the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. Most of the national coastline lies within it. Beyond the harbour, open shore runs toward the Egyptian frontier and down to Eritrea.

Where is Red Sea?

Four neighbours and one sea frame the state. Egypt lies along the northern boundary, River Nile State along the western, Kassala State to the south and Eritrea to the southeast, while the Red Sea itself forms the entire eastern edge and gives the wilayah its name. Most of Sudan's coastline falls inside it.

That single fact makes the state the country's only maritime frontage, and it is the reason Port Sudan grew into the handling point for goods moving between the interior and the Indian Ocean. Ground behind the shore is broad by any measure, reaching from the Egyptian boundary down to Eritrea, and it falls away inland toward River Nile State and Kassala State rather than toward any second coast. The water beyond lies between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, and geologically it carries Africa's Great Rift Valley northward before dividing into two arms, the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba, with Sinai held between them.

The Suez Route runs on from there to the Mediterranean. Sudan claims the Halaib Triangle on the northern frontier as part of Red Sea State; the area is administered by Egypt, and the territorial dispute over it is unresolved.

What is Red Sea like?

Arabic is the language of the state. Life along this shore is organised around Port Sudan, the capital and largest city, where the trade of an entire country is loaded and unloaded and where most of the state's urban activity gathers. The register lists no monuments.

No museums, no protected buildings and no named heritage sites appear for Red Sea State, so what stands in for a cultural record here is the working day of a seaport and the traffic of the water it faces. One of the eighteen wilayat that make up Sudan, it carries an administrative frame rather than a distinct regional tradition, and that frame is most of what has been written down. The sea is shared.

The Red Sea Coast of Egypt and the Red Sea Project in Saudi Arabia sit on other shores of the same water, and the reefs and islands that draw divers are described in the northern Red Sea rather than off this stretch. Ferries work the sea routes between the coasts. That traffic, together with the shipping channel of the Suez Route toward the Mediterranean, keeps the water busy even where the Sudanese shore itself is quiet.

What is the history of Red Sea?

The record gives Red Sea State no date of establishment. Red Sea State enters the register as one of the eighteen wilayat of Sudan, with Port Sudan set down as capital and largest city, and with the shoreline that gives the state its name marking the country's single opening to the sea. One frontier question stays open.

Sudan claims the Halaib Triangle as part of the state, Egypt administers the area, and the dispute over it remains unsettled.

What is the climate of Red Sea?

The record holds no weather figures. Red Sea State meets open water along the whole of its eastern edge, and the geographic register marks that shore as exposed rather than sheltered, which is the extent of what can be said here without inventing conditions. Nothing on rainfall is set down.

Nothing on the seasons either. Anyone planning around heat or wind checks a live source for Port Sudan.

How do you get to Red Sea?

Almost everything arrives through Port Sudan. The seaport handles the bulk of Sudan's international trade, which makes it the entry point for goods and, by extension, the practical landing point for anyone reaching the state off the water. Ferries cross the Red Sea.

Overland the state joins River Nile State to the west and Kassala State to the south, while Egypt closes the northern boundary and Eritrea the southeast.