Sudan is one of the largest countries on the African continent.

The highest point in Sudan is the Deriba Caldera, collapsed volcano (3042 meters, 9980 feet).

The Nile is the principal river in Sudan. The Blue and the White Nile join the Nile at Khartoum.

People have lived along the Nile for many thousands of years.

The ancient Kingdom of Kush was situated in the north-east of Sudan.

Between about 1500 BC and 1100 BC Kush was administered as a province of Egypt. Later, Egypt was ruled by kings of Kush (Egypt's Twenty-fifth Dynasty).

Meroe was the capital of the Meroitic Kingdom (from the fourth century BC to the fourth century AD). Some of the royal pyramids built at Meroe have been restored.

A number of Christian kingdoms were established along the Nile by the sixth century.

Muslim contact with Sudan began in the seventh century.

Sudan's name is derived from the Arab name, Belad es-Sudan.

For centuries the island port of Suakin, connected to the mainland by a causeway, was a major port for Indian Ocean trade. Suakin declined in importance when Port Sudan was built in the early twentieth century.

Northern Sudan was conquered by Turko-Egyptian armies in 1821.

Khartoum was captured in 1885 by the religious leader known as the Mahdi.

British and Egyptian forces regained control of Sudan in 1899.

General Charles George Gordon (1833-1885), the British governor of Egyptian Sudan, was killed in the attack on Khartoum.

Sudan remained under joint British and Egyptian rule for fifty years.

Sudan achieved independence in January 1956.

Civil wars took place in Sudan in the second half of the twentieth century.

Oil was discovered southern Sudan in 1978.

Sudan suffered famines in the 1970s and 1980s. Famines also occurred in 1998 and 2001.

A conflict broke out in the western region of Darfur in 2003.

Floods in 2007 affected countries in Africa, from east to west; a number of people lost their lives in flooding in Sudan.

In 2011 South Sudan gained independence.

The army took over Sudan from President Bashir in 2019.

A power struggle within the military government in 2023 led to violence with attacks on hospital and medical facilities.