Sudan is an African country located in the northeastern part of the continent, just south of Egypt and north of Ethiopia

and South Sudan, with Eritrea and the Red Sea to the east, and just across the Red Sea,

for slightly larger geographic context, is Saudi Arabia. Part of its northwestern border

touches Libya, Chad is to the west,

and the Central African Republic is just barely touching its southwestern border.

Sudan has a population of not quite 45 million people, approximately 75% of whom are Sudanese Arabs, with the rest of the population consisting of folks from

either indigenous groups scattered throughout the region or ethnic groups more common to nearby

nations like Egypt. It's the third largest country in Africa by geographic area, and it was the

largest in Africa until 2011, when what is

today, South Sudan seceded, handing over the title of geographically largest African nation

to Algeria as a consequence. The term Sudan originally had a larger regional connotation,

referring to a portion of Africa, composed of what we might today loosely call Western

and Central Africa. The term is derived from Arabic and means something like land of the black people and was used to delineate a portion of the

continent primarily inhabited by people with darker skin than those living in the more

northeastern portions of the continent who had comparably lighter skin and lived in influential kingdoms, from which such monikers were more

likely to gain traction and be spread widely. One of those kingdoms was called the Kingdom of

Kush, and it straddled the Nile River, and was politically aligned with the early kingdoms of Egypt, which makes sense, as from what

we're able to tell about the people living in these areas during prehistoric times, they

shared a lot of common concerns and norms and culture and blood.

Over the course of these two kingdoms' development, Egypt became more dominant, but the two groups

were tied to each other by trade along the Nile. Eventually, during their Middle Kingdom era,

ranging from about 2100 to 1720 BC, Egypt began to build military fortifications further up river, which is headed south, into Kush

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