Top Places to Visit In Sudan On Your Next Vacation

• Nubian tribes in the far North.
• Arab tribes in Central Sudan, Kordufan and Darfur.
• Beja tribes in Eastern Sudan.
• Mapan and Angassana tribes in Southern Blue Nile.
• Nubian tribes in Southern Kordufan.
• Southern Nilotic tribes in South Sudan.

Top Places to Visit In Sudan On Your Next Vacation

Jebel Barkal

Jebel Barkal or Gebel Barkal is a very small mountain located some 400 km north of Khartoum, in Karima town in Northern State in Sudan, on a large bend of the Nile River, in the region called Nubia. The mountain is 98 m tall, has a flat top, and apparently was used as a landmark by the traders in the important route between central Africa, Arabia, and Egypt, as the point where it was easier to cross the great river. In 2003, the mountain, together with the historical city of Napata, were named World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. The Jebel Barkal area houses the Jebel Barkal Museum. The Jebel Barkal pyramids are one example of Nubian pyramids.

Sudan National Museum

The National Museum of Sudan or Sudan National Museum, abbreviated SNM, is a double storied building constructed in 1955 and established as a museum in 1971. The building and its surrounding gardens house the largest and most comprehensive Nubian archaeological collection in the world including objects from the Paleolithic through to the Islamic period originating from every site of importance in the Sudan. In particular it houses collections of these periods of the History of Sudan: Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, A-Group culture, C-Group culture, Kerma Culture, Middle Kingdom of Egypt, New Kingdom of Egypt, Napata, Meroë, X-Group culture and medieval Makuria. The museum is located on the El Neel Avenue in Khartoum in Al-Mugran area near the spot where the White and the Blue Niles meet.

Pyramids Of MEROE

The Pyramids of Meroë are part of the larger group of Nubian pyramids, built at the time of the Kushite Kingdom over a period close to a millennium. On 8 September 2020, the pyramids were threatened for the first time by floods. Near Meroë, three royal cemeteries were constructed: South Cemetery features nine royal pyramids. Four of the pyramids belonged to Kings and five belonged to queens. One hundred and ninety-five other tombs complete the cemetery. North cemetery contains forty-one royal pyramids. Thirty belonged to kings, six to queens and five to other royals. The cemetery has three more non-royal tombs for a total of forty-four. West cemetery is a non-royal site. It contains some one hundred and thirteen tombs.

Tuti Island

Tuti Island is an island in Sudan where the White Nile and Blue Nile merge to form the main Nile. It is surrounded by the “Three Towns”: Khartoum, Omdurman, and Khartoum North. Despite this, Tuti is home to only one small village, with grassland being the main makeup of the island. In the past the only approach to Tuti Island was via several ferries that cross the river every so often, but the Tuti Bridge, a modern suspension bridge, was completed in 2008 and can be used instead. Tuti Island is mainly agricultural and where Khartoum gets most of its supply of fruits and vegetables and therefore, you can find many farms situated all around the island, many of them still using manual methods of farming. You will find acres of green fields and lime groves.

Merowe Dam

The Merowe Dam, also known as Merowe High Dam, Merowe Multi-Purpose Hydro Project or Hamdab Dam, is a large dam near Merowe Town in northern Sudan, about 350 kilometres north of the capital Khartoum. Its dimensions make it the largest contemporary hydropower project in Africa. It is situated on the river Nile, close to and inundating the 4th Cataract where the river divides into multiple smaller branches with large islands in between. Merowe is a city about 40 kilometres downstream from the construction site at Hamdab. The main purpose for building the dam was the generation of electricity.

Al-Musawwarat as-Safra

Musawwarat es-Sufra, also known as Al-Musawarat Al-Sufra, is a large Meroitic temple complex in modern Sudan, dating back to the early Meroitic period of the 3rd century BC. It is located in a large basin surrounded by low sandstone hills in the western Butana, 180 km northeast of Khartoum, 20 km north of Naqa and approximately 25 km south-east of the Nile. Its MGRS coordinates: 36QWD3477214671. With Meroë and Naqa it is known as the Island of Meroe, and was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2011. Constructed in sandstone, the main features of the site include the Great Enclosure, the Lion Temple of Apedemak and the Great Reservoir. Most significant is the number of representations of elephants, suggesting that this animal played an important role at Musawwarat es-Sufra.

Saï

Saï is a large island in the Nile River in Nubia between the second and third cataracts, in the country of Sudan. It is 12 km long and 5.5 km wide. Saï was intermittently occupied by the Egyptians during the New Kingdom. In the Makurian period it was the center of a bishopric, while in the second half of the 16th century the Ottomans founded a fortress on the island. The northeast portion of the island contains a New Kingdom of Egypt temple and numerous mills associated with ancient gold production. Nearby is an Ottoman Empire fort composed of sandstone quarried along the river banks, and spolia bearing the cartouche of Amenhotep IV, amongst other 18th Dynasty rulers. Numerous round tombs are close by.

Nile Street

Taka Mountains Nature Preserve

Jebel Aulia Dam

The Jebal Aulia Dam is a dam on the White Nile near Khartoum, Sudan. Its construction began 1933 and was completed in 1937. When completed it was the largest dam in the World. The dam was built by Gibson and Pauling Ltd, which was a partnership between the British civil engineering company Pauling & Co. and the civil engineer John Watson Gibson. In 2003 a hydroelectricity project with a 30-megawatt maximum capacity was completed on the dam. This increased the structure’s strategic value, so it is now continually guarded by the Sudanese Army.

Museum of the Khalifa’s House

The Khalifa House Museum is an ethnographic museum, located opposite the Mahdi’s tomb in the city of Omdurman in Sudan. It was the residence of the successor of the Mahdi, Khalifa Abdallahi ibn Muhammad and the headquarters of the administration of the Mahdi State. The House was converted into a museum in 1928.

Temple of Amun, Jebel Barkal

The Temple of Amun is an archaeological site at Jebel Barkal in Northern State, Sudan. It is situated about 400 kilometres north of Khartoum near Karima. The temple stands near a large bend of the Nile River, in the region that was called Nubia in ancient times. The Temple of Amun, one of the largest temples at Jebel Barkal, is considered sacred to the local population. Not only was the Amun temple a main centre of what at one time was considered to be an almost universal religion, but, along with the other archaeological sites at Jebel Barkal, it was representative of the revival of Egyptian religious values. Up to the middle of the 19th century, the temple was subjected to vandalism, destruction, and indiscriminate plundering, before it came under state protection.

The Sixth Cataract

Republican Palace Museum

Exhibits exploring Sudanese history

Tombos

Tombos or Tumbus is an archaeological site and an island in northern Sudan. The village and the island are located at the third cataract of the Nile, not far from Kerma near the present Karmah. A large range of pharaonic and private rock inscriptions were carved at Tombos during the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt when the site marked an important boundary between Nubian and Egyptian interaction. An important black granite quarry was located at Tombos in the pharaonic era. Its stone was used mostly to build statues and buildings between the river delta and the southern regions of the kingdom. Its most prominent feature is a statue of a pharaoh of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt, abandoned for over 2700 years. In 1991, a survey of the University of Khartoum revealed the remains of an important Egyptian colonial cemetery of New Kingdom date. In 2000, Stuart Tyson Smith of the University of California, Santa Barbara and his team excavated the remains of a pyramid more than 3,500 years old, and the buried remains of an Egyptian colonial administrator named Siamun and his mother, Weren.

Al Mogran Family Park

Kuku Zoo

The Khartoum Zoo was a zoological park located in Khartoum, Sudan

Al-Nilin Mosque

Al-Nilin Mosque is a mosque in Omdurman, Sudan. It is located on the western banks of the Nile river, just opposite to the confluence of the two Niles. It was built in the 1970s during the Nimeiry era of Sudan, and since then remains one of the fine architectural religious venues in the country.

Al Kabir Grand Mosque – Khartoum

Wadi Allaqi

Wadi Allaqi, also transliterated as Wadi Allaqui or Wadi Alalaqi, is a wadi in southern Egypt. It begins in Sudan below Halaib Triangle, and its mouth is south of Aswan on the eastern shore of Lake Nasser. Wadi Allaqi is the major dry river in the southeastern part of the Eastern Desert of Egypt, draining the area from the hills near the Red Sea to the valley of the Nile. With a length of 250 km, the wadi is used by the nomadic Bejas who live in the area – about 1,000 members of the Ababda and Bisharyn tribes as of 2003 – to graze livestock, for the production of charcoal for fuel, to collect medicinal plants, for quarrying for copper and nickel and for agriculture on a small scale. As of 1989 the area has been a nature reserve managed by the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency. It was declared a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 1993. Wadi Allaqi is famous for gold and rock inscriptions. A noteworthy rock inscription site is found at Umm Ashira. A Middle Kingdom of Egypt fortress was built at Quban, near the original waddi’s mouth, with another fortress built at Ikkur.

White Nile Bridge

The Omdurman Bridge is a steel truss bridge in Sudan on the road connecting Khartoum on the White Nile to Omdurman.

St. Matthew’s Cathedral, Khartoum

St. Matthew’s Cathedral is a Christian religious building in Khartoum, which is the capital of Khartoum State and Sudan. The cathedral is located on the bank of the Blue Nile, next to the Mac Nimir Bridge. It is the seat of the Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Khartoum, under the patronage of Saint Matthew the Apostle. This building resembles a fairy-tale castle with its various turrets, slender spires and a large rose window.

Upper Atbara and Setit Dam Complex

The Upper Atbara and Setit Dam Complex is a twin dam complex comprising Rumela Dam on the Upper Atbarah River and Burdana Dam on the Setit River in eastern Sudan. The site of the twin dam is located about 20 kilometres upstream from the junction of the Atbarah and Setit rivers and about 80 kilometres south of the Khashm el-Girba Dam. Construction began in 2011 was expected to be completed by March 2016. The 320 MW dam was inaugurated by President Omar al-Bashir in February 2017, with final stages completed later that year.

Lake Nubia

Ethnographic Museum

Aba Island

Aba Island is an island on the White Nile to the south of Khartoum, Sudan. It is the original home of the Mahdi in Sudan and the spiritual base of the Umma Party.

Uronarti

Uronarti, a Nubian word meaning “Island of the King”, is an island in the Nile just south of the Second Cataract in the north of Sudan. The primary importance of the island lies in the massive ancient fortress that still stands on its northern end. This fortress is one of a number constructed along the Nile in Lower Nubia during the Middle Kingdom, primarily by the rulers Senusret I and Senusret III. Many of the fortresses, which include Buhen, Mirgissa, Shalfak, Askut, Dabenarti, Semna, and Kumma, were established within signaling distance of each other. Most of the fortresses are now beneath Lake Nasser; Uronarti and Shalfak remain above water and both have recently seen the establishment of new archaeological projects.

جبل توتيل

Mountain and nature

Blue Nile Bridge

The Blue Nile Road and Railway Bridge is a bascule bridge in Sudan, which links the capital Khartoum to the industrial city Khartoum North across the Blue Nile

River Nile

Sabaloka Game Reserve

The Sabaloka Game Reserve is found in Sudan. It was established in 1946. This site is 1160 km². Due to the change of climatic conditions, excessive deforestation and hunting of wild animals, the living conditions in this area have changed greatly. The disappearance of vegetation is visible, many animals have disappeared, and many are threatened with extinction. Archaeological excavations were carried out in this area in the period from 2013 to 2015. This significantly improved the archaeological map of Sudan and provided an understanding of the development of prehistoric communities in the Sabaloka Game Reserve area.

Masharif

Suakin Island

Ruins and ancient history

Al-Rikini Mosque

Deriba Caldera

Kerma Museum

The Kerma Museum is an archeological site museum located in front of the Western Deffufa on the archaeological site of Kerma, in the Northern State of Sudan. It opened in 2008 and contains many archaeological items removed from the Kerma culture, as well as a section focusing on the Christian and Islamic history of the region.

Jebel Dosha

Jebel Dosha is a sandstone promontory right beside the Nile, on the western river bank between Soleb and Sedeinga in Northern State in Sudan. It features a rock-cut chapel of Thutmose III, similar to the contemporary Temple of Ellesyia as well as several stelae and rock inscriptions of New Kingdom date.

Temple of Soleb

Hamed el-Nil Tomb

Al Sunut Forest

Forest and nature

ebel Dair

Jebel Dair is an igneous mountain in central Sudan. It rises over 1000m above the surrounding terrain and 1451m above sea level. The flanks of the mountain apparently have been denuded of vegetation, although water exists in some of the meandering stream channels within the darker, vegetated wadis. It can be seen as the dark, fractured structure near the center of the photograph to the right. The mountain flanks are the broad reddish-tan ring around it. A small muddy reservoir can be seen near the northwest corner of the photograph, and sand dunes to the northwest. With the exception of Jebel Dair, most of the region is fairly flat. It is hot and semiarid, and marginally suited for subsistence agriculture, as well as for commercial crops of peanuts, sesame, and gum arabic. Drainage patterns dominate the landscape in central Sudan west of the White Nile River. Several major wadis, intermittently flowing watercourses, merge west and northwest of the mountain. The sand dunes nearby capture the wide variation in annual precipitation in the region, which makes agricultural activity tenuous.

Mirgissa

Mirgissa was a settlement in Northern state, Sudan. Situated at the 2nd cataract, it contained one of the largest fortresses in Nubia. In the time of Thutmose II, 250 to 450 people inhabited the area. The site was first explored by the English geologist Sir Henry George Lyons in 1892, and was excavated by the French Egyptologist Jean Vercoutter from 1962 to 1969. In addition to the fort, excavations uncovered the remains of two cities, one of which was fortified, a northern enclosure, two cemeteries, a boat slide, and a port. Construction of the Aswan High Dam caused the disappearance of Mirgissa, which now lies under the waters of Lake Nubia.

Jebel Umm Arafieb

Jebel Umm Arafieb is a volcanic field in Sudan, also known as Jebel Umm Marafieb.

Sumar Island

Child City

Umm Ruweim

Umm Ruweim is an archaeological ruin site 4 kilometres from Ghazali in present-day Sudan. Consisting of two forts and some cemeteries, the site is situated just south of the Nile’s Fourth Cataract at Wadi Abu Dom. There are two documented forts of the Meroitic period. The Umm Ruweim I measures 50 by 50 metres and has four towers. Umm Ruweim II, 400 metres to the southeast, has a simpler plan consisting only of a perimeter wall. The function of these forts may have been military, but is uncertain. In the vicinity of the sites, there are small cemeteries that have been partially excavated. Umm Ruweim was unknown until the 50s, when its Christian antiquities were surveyed. An ongoing survey by Angelika Lohwasser of the University of Münster since 2009 in the Wadi Abu Dom area includes documentation of the ruins of Umm Ruweim.

Lake Kundi

Lake Kundi is located in South Darfur, Sudan, Africa. The perennial, endorheic lake is situated at the mouth of Ibrah River, near the seasonal Bahr al-Arab. The nearest town is Al-Fashir, 350 kilometres to the north. The 20 square kilometres lake reaches 1,200 hectares at high water, shrinking to 100–200 hectares in the dry season. The lake is shallow, 2–3 metres in depth, depending upon the season. The lake is situated at an altitude of 460 metres above sea level. Radom National Park is located to the southwest.

Argo Island

Argo Island is an island of the Nile in Sudan. The island contains a town of the same name and the Nubian archaeology site of Tabo.

Jabal al Awliya’

Gebel al-Ain

Gebel al-Ain is a plateau in Sudan at the border between the Northern state and North Kurdufan. The Gebel al-Ain area is more fertile than the surrounding dry savannah, making it a popular grazing ground for the Kababish-nomads dwelling around it. Around the Gebel al-Ain many archaeological sites are situated, mostly graveyards of the post-Meroitic and medieval Christian period. The most prominent archaeological sites are a ruined monastery in the west of the mountain – the south-westernmost outpost of the Makurian state known so far – and a settlement of round huts with a surrounding wall close to Bir al-Ain southwest of the main top of the mountain.

Tagabo Hills

The Tagabo Hills is a volcanic field in the region of Darfur in Sudan. It lies north of the Marrah Mountains and southwest of the larger Meidob Volcanic Field. The Tagabo Hills are also known as the Kutum Volcanic Field, after the town of Kutum, or the Berti Hills after the Berti people. It contains well-preserved features, such as scoria cones, thought to be of the late Pleistocene or even as recent as the Holocene. However, a 1997 analysis ascribed the rocks only to the Paleogene/Neogene periods.

Omdurman Grand Mosque

The Tagabo Hills is a volcanic field in the region of Darfur in Sudan. It lies north of the Marrah Mountains and southwest of the larger Meidob Volcanic Field. The Tagabo Hills are also known as the Kutum Volcanic Field, after the town of Kutum, or the Berti Hills after the Berti people. It contains well-preserved features, such as scoria cones, thought to be of the late Pleistocene or even as recent as the Holocene. However, a 1997 analysis ascribed the rocks only to the Paleogene/Neogene periods

Tangasi Island

Wadi Abu Dom

Wadi Abu Dom is an arid valley in Sudan. Situated in the Bayuda Desert, it runs from the central Bayuda approximately 150 km down to the Nile. Several archaeological sites, e.g. Umm Ruweim and the monastery of Ghazali are located at Wadi Abu Dom. In 2011, rock art, some of which is at least 5,000 years old, was discovered at 15 sites.

Omjerky

Omjerky is a tiny island near Wad Hamid. Most of the people are farmers. They grow crops and raise cattle and sheep. There is a primary school, a clinic and a mosque. The people are friendly and generous. In the past, Omjerky was river port. Boats used to come from Khartoum heading north or from Shendi heading south. There is Khalwat Alfaki Salim which was founded by Wad Fazari from the Jaleen tribe. Elobied Wad Badr a famous Sufi used to teach in that Khalwa. See Omjerky in Google Maps: https://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=16.413527,32.778397&spn=0.077228,0.109692&z=13

Batn-El-Hajar

Batn-El-Hajar or Belly of Stones is a reach of approximately 160 km in length stretching from the Dal Cataract of the Nile downriver to the now under Lake Nubia submerged Second Cataract in present-day Sudan.

Askut

Askut was an ancient Egyptian island fortress in the Middle Kingdom on the Nile, which was built for the purpose of securing the border to Nubia. Since the completion of the Aswan High Dam, the island has been flooded with Lake Nubia. The fort, about 351 kilometers south of Aswan was built by Sesostris III. It measured 77 × 87 meters. The protective wall had a thickness of 5.3 meters and had spur-like bastions. The highly fortified entrance protected a temple and warehouses along the harbor. Inside the castle were a commander’s house and barracks. Pottery has been unearthed at the site dated to the early 13th Dynasty.

Artul

Meinarti

Meinarti was an island with a Nubian village in northern Sudan. Situated in the Nile, Meinarti was just north of the 2nd Cataract, a few kilometers upstream of the Sudanese border town of Wadi Halfa. On the island was an artificial mount 175m long and 12.5m high, consisting of stratified archaeological remains. When excavated it proved to contain 18 recognizable levels, the result of six separate and distinct phases of occupation. Each phase was followed by a period of abandonment and then a complete rebuilding. Structural remains at all phases were entirely of mud brick. Meinarti was excavated by William Yewdale Adams from 1962 to 1964, prior to perishing in the 1960s with the rising of Lake Nubia due to the Aswan Dam. The earliest occupation, Phase 1 occurred during the later, Meroitic phase of the great Nubian empire of Kush. Its beginning coincided more or less with the Roman occupation of Egypt, in 30 BC. The surviving remains included no residences, but three stoutly built public or commercial buildings. The largest was too poorly preserved for definite interpretation.

NTC Tower

NTC Tower is a building in Khartoum, Sudan.

Aksha, Sudan

Aksha is an ancient Egyptian temple, rebuilt in part at the National Museum of Sudan in Khartoum. The temple was built around 1250 BC by Ramses II. It is situated in the far north of present-day Sudan, a few kilometers south of Faras, on the west side of the Nile. On the temple walls, several sacrifices are depicted. The location of the temple was not well chosen, as it is only a few inches above the high tide of the Nile. This resulted in penetration of the lower wall layers, salt crystallization on the wall surfaces, and stones being worn down over the centuries. In addition, the temple was preyed upon by the local population. Other finds at the site include cemeteries, parts of Qubanstele, and the stele with the “blessings of Ptah”. The 1963 excavations of Aksha were initiated because of the construction of the Aswan Dam. One of the discoveries included a relatively well-preserved temple wall, the western wall of the courtyard. Along its entire length, it contains a carved list of the foreign nations which Ramses II. After the temple was deemed worthy of preservation, archaeologists from the University of Ghana sawed the wall into individual blocks.

Wad Al Jabal Mosque

Al Fasher Lake

Lake and river

Tuty bridge

The Tuti-Khartoum Bridge is a modern suspension bridge linking between Tuti Island and the City of Khartoum that was completed in February 2008. In the past the only approach to Tuti Island was via ferries but thanks to the Tuti-Khartoum Bridge, easy access to the island is possible. The Tuti Bridge in Khartoum is considered to be the first suspension bridge to be constructed in Sudan and one of the first constructed in Africa. The concept design of the bridge was proposed by Alfatih Ahmed, with the final working design by A&A Company Its construction depended on new bridge technology, enabling the erection to be carried out using local expertise & equipment. The Tuti-Khartoum Bridge is the first among a series of bridges that will connect the cities of Khartoum, Omdurman and Bahri, and will help to alleviate traffic throughout the cities. The development has immediately commercialised the previously isolated Tuti Island.

Kulubnarti

Kulubnarti is a 1 mile long island in northern Sudan. Located on the Nile, around 100 miles south of the Egyptian border, it is part of the village of Kulb. Until the fifteenth century, Kulubnarti was a remote area. It was one of the last known refuges for Christians in Nubia, while Islam spread to the south. It has been inhabited since the time of the Christian kingdom of Makuria, approximately 1100 AD. Continuously inhabited from the eleventh century to modern times, it is the only Nubian location which has demonstrated through archaeologically investigation a continuous occupation from the Middle Ages to modern history. Kulubnarti has archaeological and anthropological significance because it has been subjected to one of the only systematic excavations of any site along the southern portion of the Nile. The primary motivation for excavation at Kulubnarti was to increase awareness and understanding of the cultural transition from Christianity to Islam in ancient Nubia. Nubia converted to Christianity by the late 6th century and Christianity prevailed as the dominant religion of the region until the 14th century when Moslems gained control of territory south of the 3rd Cataract.

Ain Farah

Ain Farah is an archaeological site in Darfur in western Sudan. It was at one time the capital of the last Tunjur ruler, Shau Dorshid. It comprises large-scale area of stone and brick walls. It has been visited or described many times. Ain Farah moved one author to quote Macaulay – “like an eagle’s nest that hangs on the crest”, for it is built some 100 metres above a spring. It is characterised by several hundred brick and stone structures and terraces, and is defended by steep ridges and by a massive stone wall 3–4 kilometres long. There is a brick and stone edifice which appears to have served as a mosque, a large stone group which may have served as a public building, and a main group on the highest point of the ridge, described variously as a royal residence or military defence.

Al Dinder National Park

Dinder National Park is a national park and biosphere reserve in eastern Sudan, and is connected to Ethiopia’s Alatash National Park

Radom National Park

Radom National Park is a biosphere reserve in South Darfur, Sudan, Africa. Most of it is disputed nowadays between Sudan and South Sudan, as the area of Kafia Kingi, which makes up the vast majority of the National Park, was to be transferred to South Sudan through the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005. However, Sudan is still holding some weak control over the area. The area became a safe haven for smugglers since. The Park is 1,250,970 hectares in size. The Adda and Umblasha Rivers form the park’s northern and southern boundaries. Contiguous to Radom is the Andre Felix National Park of the Central African Republic. Established as a park, it was designated in 1979 as a member of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves. Rivers, streams, and permanent pools cover much of the park, which is characterized as a wooded savannah. Approximately 90% of the habitat is shrubland, while the remainder is forest. Annual rainfall ranges between 900–1,700 millimetres; the mean annual relative humidity ranges between 57-65%; and the average annual temperature is 16-27 C.