La Licorne
SUDAN
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Population (1993): 26 million |
Area: 2.4 million sq km |
Despite its dry climate the Sudan is the main basin for the River Nile.
It is the extent of this largest country of Africa that yields so prominently to the world's longest river.
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A land so vast that it seems to be hanging between the Tropic of Cancer to the north and the Equator to the South, |
click for location map |
click for geophysics |
covering deserts, savannahs and rainforests, as the geophysical and climatic conditions dictate. |
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The desert covers the northern half of the country. Vegetation is not to be seen but for ephemeral herbs and grasses springing up in depressions after erratic rain. Capital Khartoum lies in a zone where the rainfall allows a thin vegetation to surface more frequently, and dwarf Acacia may survive. These boundless deserts are the domain of the nomads.
Where to the south the rainfall rises, Desert
turns into Sahel, and the Sahel into Savannah. Likewise grass for grazing can
be found more commonly and over longer seasons, while the woody dwarfs unfold
into trees of which the Acacia produces the renown Arabic Gum. In the eastern
Nile plains the soils are of clay, which to the south are frequently flooded,
leaving behind extended marshy broad leafed forests, grass lands and swamps.
To the west sandy 'Qoz' lands prevail. For the nomads the savannah belt
functions as the main fodder provider. The residing population is settled in
sparse villages across the region and by tradition making a living by
shifting cultivation. |
In a zone above the southern border the rainfall increases with the rise of the land. The thick savannah of the southern plains turns here into mountain rain forests, where conditions allow the growth of a wide variety of crops.
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