El-Obeid
Sudan · Africa
關於El-Obeid
El-Obeid (Arabic: الأبيض, al-ʾAbyaḍ, lit. "the White"), also romanized as Al-Ubayyid, is the capital of the state of North Kordofan, in Sudan. It's located within the Sheikan locality and under the former administrative structure within Sheikan District.
El-Obeid, known as the 'bride of the sands', was founded by the pashas of Ottoman Egypt in 1821 and served as an important trading hub throughout Sudanese history, considered a meeting point between the country's North, South, and West. The city incorporates a wide range of tribal groups and ethnicities, including many of the Northern riverain tribes, classified as the jallaba, who migrated for trade and to escape the oppression of the Turko-Egyptian authorities of the North. It was considered an important point of control in the various conquests for Sudan, with its capture by the Mahdists in September 1882, a crucial turning point for the movement. It was rebuilt on a modern plan in 1898, following the fall of the Mahdist state.
In 2008, its population was 340,940. An important transportation hub, it is the terminus of a rail line, the junction of various national roads and camel caravan routes, and the...
Overview adapted from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA. Photography via Wikimedia Commons.