History of the Sudanese War Chapter Two On the Geography and Population of Sudan The reader might mistakenly believe that Sudan is the name for all black lands, and thus a name for everything that falls within the continent of Africa between the Red Sea on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other. This is a misconception without truth. The truth is that Sudan is the name for vast lands whose glory extends from Egypt in the north, and from Equatoria in the south, and from the Red Sea in the east, and from the borders of Darfur in the west. Its form is irregular, and its provinces are not fixed in their borders; rather, it is like a flexible body, accepting expansion and extension at times, and contraction and reduction at others. It contains the Nubian deserts, located south of the first cataract of the Nile. The area of these deserts reaches 530,000 square miles. And other lands whose area reaches about 516,000 square miles, which are the cities of Kordofan and Darfur in the west, and Sennar, Naka, and Sakhit, and the provinces belonging to Suakin and Massawa in the east, and the provinces of Equatoria and Bahr el Ghazal in the south. All these lands draw their water from one river, the Nile, which flows from the regions bordering the equator. It is no wonder then that the ancient Egyptians worshipped it, for it is the life of their land, and without it, their lands would be sandy deserts, indistinguishable from the vast deserts on its banks to the east and west.