Khartoum . Capital of the state of Sudan and of the country with the same name. It is located where the river called the White Nile meets the Blue Nile , forming the Nile River , which continues its course towards Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea , being more specific between the coordinates: 15 ° 36′27 ″ N 32 ° 32′13 ″ AND. The city has 2,207,794 inhabitants. In Arabic the name of the city means elephant trunk.
Summary
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- 1 History
- 2 Geography
- 1 Climate
- 3 Population
- 4 Economy
- 5 Sources
History
In ancient times the area where today’s Khartoum is located was just a small fishing village on the banks of the Nile.
In 1821 the city was founded by Mehmet Ali , creating a garrison of the Egyptian army there due to its strategic position.
In 1824, Governor Uthman Bey Djarkas declared it the administrative capital and headquarters of the Egyptian territories of the Sudan, which greatly benefited it and facilitated rapid growth that led it to become a center of regional trade, which was not exempt from criminal typical slave trade of the time.
On March 13, 1884 the troops of al Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad surrounded the city that was being defended by the British general [[Charles George Gordon and the soldiers and followers under his command, but already on January 26, 1885 the city did not resist the attackers on the attack and fell to the Mahdi supporters.
On September 2, 1898, British forces led by Count Horatio Kitchener defeated the Mahdist forces defending the city. The bloody battle went down in history as the Battle of Omdurman .
Years after the city was built by various communities but with a predominance of the Greek community and even today there are vestiges of these works as reliable examples of the influence of the Greeks in the Sudan.
In 1956 when independence from the United Kingdom was proclaimed, Khartoum was declared the capital of Sudan.
Between the 1970s and 1990s, the city received hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the conflicts in neighboring countries such as Chad , Ethiopia and Uganda , as well as the well-known Darfur conflict and other civil wars, these refugees settled in suburbs around the outskirts of the city.
Geography
The city is located between the coordinates: 15 ° 36′27 ″ N 32 ° 32′13 ″ E, specifically where the White Nile, coming from Uganda , with the Blue Nile, coming from Ethiopia, is unified , thus giving rise the most famous and largest river in all of Africa and one of the longest in the world, the Nile , which follows its course from Khartoum to Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea. This entire region is located on a plateau that rises to more than 382 meters above sea level, within a strip of semi-arid climate influenced by the large mountain ranges in the south of the country and the known Ethiopian massif. like Sahel .
Weather
Khartoum’s climate is arid or desert, with two very marked seasons: one long, dry and wintry, and the other short, hot and somewhat rainy, between July and September, all of which makes its temperatures high throughout the year and Annual rainfall is practically non-existent except for the months of July and August. A fact to highlight is the great thermal jump that occurs between day and night with an average variation of 16º C. which also occurs in other cities in Africa .
Population
The city has 2,207,794 inhabitants according to the 2005 census, but together with Khartoum North and Omdurman it forms a metropolis of almost eight million inhabitants.
Economy
The city of Khartoum has a great economic importance within the country due to the fact that it concentrates a large part of the economic activity of all Sudan, the oil development has given an extraordinary economic boost to the city and the country, converting what It was a city in the middle of the desert on the banks of the Nile in a huge and flourishing city with a vigorous and prosperous economy that continues to grow thanks to the wealth that its oil fields provide. Other important economic activities are traditional industries, among which the following stand out: textile manufacturing, printing, glass manufacturing and food processing.
