The Sudan is the name given to a geographic region to the south of the Sahara, stretching from Western to Eastern Africa. The name derives from the Arabic bilād as-sūdān (بلاد السودان) or "land of the Blacks" (an expression denoting West and Central Africa[1]). The phrase "The Sudan" is also used to refer specifically to the modern-day country of Sudan, the western part of which forms part of the larger region, and from which South Sudan gained its independence in 2011.
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The Sudan extends in some 5,000 km in a band several hundred km wide across Africa. It stretches from the border of Senegal, through southern Mali (formerly known as French Sudan when it was a French colony), Burkina Faso, southern Niger and northern Nigeria, southern Chad and the western Darfur region of present-day Sudan.
In the north of the region lies the Sahel, a more arid Acacia savanna region which in turn borders the Sahara desert to the north, and the Ethiopian Highlands in the east (called al-Ḥabašah in Arabic). In the south-west lies the West Sudanian savanna, a wetter, tropical savanna region bordering the tropical forest of West Africa. In the centre is Lake Chad, and the more fertile region around the lake, while to the south of there are the highlands of Cameroon. To the south-east is the East Sudanian savanna, another tropical savanna region, bordering the forest of Central Africa. This gives way further east to the Sudd, an area of tropical wetland fed by the water of the White Nile.
As the name suggests, the Sudan region marks the ethnic boundary between the Hamito-Semitic peoples (Arab, Berber, Tuareg) of North Africa and the Negroid peoples of West and Central Africa. Over two hundred ethnic groups inhabit the region, main being the Fula and Bambara of Mali, the Hausa of Niger, the Sara of Chad, and the Dinka of South Sudan. The region is home to more than 60 million people. Though divided into several political entities the people of the Sudan region share similar life-styles, dictated by the geography of the region. The economy is largely pastoral, while sorghum and rice are cultivated in the southern parts of the region. The region was governed in colonial times by the French, as part of their African colonial empire, but the countries of the region achieved independence in the latter half of the 20th century.