Sudan, the vast tract of open savanna plains extending across Africa between the southern limits of the Sahara (desert) and the northern limits of the equatorial rain forests. The term derives from the Arabic bilād al-sūdān (“land of the black peoples”) and has been in use from at least the 12th century. The northern reaches of the Sudan comprise the semiarid region known as the Sahel.
The Sudan extends for more than 3,500 miles (5,500 km) west-to-east across Africa from Cape Verde on the Atlantic to the highlands of Ethiopia and the Red Sea, and between about latitudes 8° and 16° N. It borders the Sahara on the north and extends southward to the forests of West Africa and the Congo River basin. The Sudan’s mean annual rainfall varies between 10 inches (250 mm) in the north and 60 inches (1,500 mm) in the south, with the hottest months usually from June to September and with a pronounced, and often very prolonged, dry season. Temperatures are generally high throughout the year. Vegetation ranges from semidesert steppe and thorn scrub near the Sahara through vast grass plains, loosely termed savannas, to parkland country where low trees grow among tall grasses, and savanna forest that merges ultimately into equatorial rain forest.
During the dry season the trees shed their leaves, all but the largest rivers run dry, and brush fires that burn up the grass are common. The rainfall might be adequate for cultivation were it not for the very high rate of evaporation, which makes irrigation essential in many areas.
Much of the Sudan is a plateau between 1,000 and 1,500 feet (330 and 415 metres) above sea level, but there are many higher areas, sometimes exceeding 10,000 feet (3,050 metres), as in northern Ethiopia and in the west of Sudan (the country). The principal rivers include the Sénégal and the Niger, draining to the Atlantic, and the Nile and its tributaries, which derive much of their water from areas beyond the Sudan region. Lake Chad in the western Sudan is a centre for interior drainage.
The people of the Sudan are predominantly black, and, though these people are primarily Bantu-speaking, there is also a considerable admixture of Arabic- and Berber-speaking peoples, the degree of their influence decreasing westward and southward toward the Gulf of Guinea. Many of the people are Muslims. The density of population is generally low. Livestock raising is a major economic activity, and considerable numbers of people are still (though decreasingly) nomadic or seminomadic, moving with their herds in search of pasturage. Movement across the grasslands is generally uninterrupted, especially during the dry season, and the continuity of a similar environment along the southern boundaries of the Sahara for vast distances has encouraged people to move from the north and east from early times. At first they traveled with the aid of horses and oxen, but migration was greatly expanded and probably accelerated with the introduction of the camel about 300 ce, especially as camel caravans were able to cross the Sahara. Thus, the Sudan was linked with the Mediterranean coastlands, whose manufactured articles, together with Saharan salt, were exchanged for the gold, kola nuts, and slaves of Guinea.
From Arab historians something is known of some of the powerful states that were established by military rule, the largest and most enduring of which were associated in the western Sudan with the termini of the desert trade routes. Ancient Ghana was created by Jewish or Berber settlers about 300 ce in the area west of Timbuktu (Tombouctou) in modern Mali, though its greatest years came when it was ruled by the black Soninke (Sarakolé) dynasty. Almoravid attacks in the 11th century reduced its power and led to its replacement by the Mali, or Mandingo, empire, centred on the upper Niger River. Mali in turn was overthrown during the latter part of the 15th century by the expansion of the Songhai, or Gao, empire, which developed from Berber settlements established on the lower Niger as early as the 7th century. In 1591 the Songhai towns of Gao, Timbuktu, and Djenné (all in modern Mali) were occupied by Moroccan troops eager to control both the lucrative caravan traffic and the long-established trade in gold. The empire was replaced by numerous black kingdoms, including the Mossi-Dagomba states, the Bambara kingdoms of Ségou and Kaarta, Bornu, and the small Hausa states that were later conquered by the Muslim Fulani early in the 19th century. European penetration in the mid- and late 19th century was followed by the establishment of political control, principally that of the French and the British, which lasted until the emergence of independent states in the region during the 1950s and early ’60s.
On the eastern side of the continent, ancient Egypt’s links with the Sudan region were generally strong, notably with Nubia. After the Nubian empire had been overrun by Muslims, it was replaced by kingdoms such as those of Dongola, Darfur, and Funj. Later there was invasion from Egypt and, in 1899, the establishment of the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium. The independent Republic of the Sudan was created in 1956.