The important part of this state is in the northeast, through which the Nile River(2) flows, at first southwest, then north. The northernmost hundred or so kilometers consists of the upper most part of Lake Nasser(3).
The rest of the area is part of the Sahara, the world's largest desert. The land rises to nearly 2,000 meters at the Libyan border, in this region's northwest.
Perhaps the majority of the 800,000 plus people here speak Nobiin, the chief language of the Nubians(4). The next largest group, certainly representing less than one in three, speak Kenuzi-Dongola, another Nubian language. There are also Hausa speakers, perhaps as may as one in twenty. Probably many, perhaps nearly all of them, learn Sudanese Spoken Arabic. Some also learn the religious language of Standard Arabic.
Almost everyone is a Sunni Moslem.
There are no large cities. The largest town is the administrative center, Dunqula, with less than 20,000 residents. Other towns are nearly as big.
The Nubians moved into this area from the south about 600 C.E. Beja speakers were invited to settle here by the Kingdom of Makouria. By several centuries ago, they had adopted Kenuzi-Dongola as their language. Before these peoples came, the area was inhabited by the people of Meroe(5), speaking a language unrelated to its neighbors.
north, from west of the Nile Valley, and northwest
north, from the northeast of the state
east, south and southwest
(1) as-Samaliyah or ash-Shamaliyah in transliterated Arabic.
(2) an-Nil in transliterated Arabic. The Nile is the world's longest river.
(3) Buhayhrat Nasir in transliterated Arabic.
(4) Called the Noubai, Noba, Annoubades, Nobitai and further south, Makoritai.
(5) Its rulers called it Kush. Cushitic languages were named for this land, but Meroitic is not a Cushitic language.