 | It has been suggested that this article bemerged withSudanian savanna. (Discuss) Proposed since November 2025. |
| Sudan بِلَادُ السُّوْدَان | |
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 An open hay landscape in the northernGambia | |
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| Ecology | |
| Borders | Sahara |
| Geography | |
| Rivers | Chari,Niger, and theWhite Nile |
Sudan is the geographical region to the south of theSahara, stretching from Western Africa to Central and Eastern Africa. The name derives from theArabicbilād as-sūdān (بلاد السودان) andarḍ as-sūdān (أَرْض السودان), both meaning "the land of theBlacks", referring toWest Africa and northernCentral Africa.[1]
According to some modern historians, of all the regions of Africa, western Sudan "is the one that has seen the longest development of agriculture, of markets and long-distance trade, and of complex political systems." It is also the first region "south of the Sahara where AfricanIslam took root and flowered."[2]
Its medieval history is marked by thecaravan trade.[3] Thesultanates of eastern Sudan wereDarfur,Bagirmi,Sennar andWadai. In central Sudan,Kanem–Bornu Empire and theHausa Kingdoms. To the west wereWagadou,Manden,Songhay and theMossi.[4][5]
Early on in thefirst millennium, many people from the Sudan were used as "a steady stream of slaves for the Mediterranean world" in theSaharan slave trade. With the arrival of thePortuguese in the fifteenth century, "people were directed to theAtlantic slave trade," totaling over a thousand years for the Saharan and four centuries for the Atlantic trades. As a result, slavery critically shaped the institutions and systems of the Sudan. The Portuguese first arrived atSenegambia and found that slavery was "well established" in the region, used to "feed the courts of coastal kings as it was used in the medieval empires of the interior." Between the process of capture, enslavement, and "incorporation into a new community, the slave had neither rights nor any social identity." As a result, the identity of people who were enslaved "came from membership in a corporate group, usually based on kinship."[6]
West Africa may be taken as the country stretching from Senegal in the west, to the Cameroons in the east; sometimes it has been called the central and western Sudan, theBilad as-Sūdan, 'Land of the Blacks', of the Arabs.
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