El-Obeid
Sudan · Africa
About 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...
El-Obeid travel guide
Understand
Founded by the pashas of Ottoman Egypt in 1821, the city was sacked by the Mahdists in September 1883. It was then rebuilt on a modern plan in 1898, following the fall of the Mahdist empire. The population of El-Obeid today is majority Muslim, with a small Christian presence. The town is the site of an airport and an oil refinery. El-Obeid is home to the University of Kordofan, one of the largest universities in Sudan, established in 1990. Since 1989, the city also has been home to a French Association that serves as a Sudanese-French cultural centre in cooperation with the university's French language department
Getting there
1 El-Obeid railway station. (updated Jul 2022)
See
1 Shikan Museum (متحف شيكان). (updated Jul 2022) 2 Our Lady Queen of Africa Cathedral. Historic Roman Catholic church. (updated Jul 2022)
Overview adapted from Wikipedia, travel guide fromWikivoyage (CC BY-SA)。Photography via Wikimedia Commons.