Nubian Desert

The eastern Nubian Desert stretches between the Nile and the Red Sea, across roughly 400,000 square kilometres of north-eastern Sudan and northern Eritrea. It forms part of the eastern Sahara. The terrain is rugged and rocky, with scattered dunes and many wadis that carry water only after rare rains. Most of those channels disappear before reaching the Nile, and average annual rainfall remains below about five inches.

The desert is crossed by routes rather than fields. The Nile passes through most of its cataracts while running through this region before the Great Bend. Red Sea ports and river settlements frame the dry interior, including Port Sudan on the coast and Atbara on its river. The Cairo-Cape Town Highway then traverses the same harsh belt. Wadis and oases provide crucial stops, but the rare palm Medemia argun is also one of the desert's vulnerable natural features.

Nubians are the native inhabitants of this region. Ancient Egyptian merchants and traders crossed the difficult country to purchase gold, cloth, stone and food from Nubian communities. For them, the desert was not an empty division but a costly passage linking the Nile Valley with the Red Sea and with Nubia. Its rocky plateaus and dry valleys forced travellers to follow known tracks, water and caravan stages.