Introduction

A nation is born in time and place — geography is its mother and history its father. When the Turks, and later the Egyptians and the British governed the area, few of them disagreed that the Sudan was a strange place in which to live. Water is the key to agricultural development and while the Nile is not as important to the Sudan as it is to Egypt, most of the people depend upon it for their livelihood. The country may be thought of as a huge amphitheatre opening to the north and drained by the Nile River. In the northern section temperatures are high and rainfall is sparse and seasonal, while in the south rainfall is heavy. North of Khartoum arid conditions are dominant as rainfall becomes even more scant and even more irregular. Most of the known early history of the Sudan is similar to Egypt's, tied to the Nile Valley area.