The Khartoum-Omdurman conurbation: a growing megacity at the confluence of the Blue and White Nile Rivers

Andrea Zerboni, Filippo Brandolini, Guido S. Mariani, Alessandro Perego, Sandro Salvatori, Donatella Usai, Manuela Pelfini and Martin A.J. Williams

Journal of Maps, 2021, vol. 17, issue 4, 227-240

Abstract: Khartoum is one of the largest cities in Africa, located immediately south of the junction of the Blue and White Nile rivers in central Sudan. The growth of the Greater Khartoum-Omdurman conurbation arose – without a proper urban plan – from the agricultural wealth created through the completion of three dams, and mostly in the last three decades. Urban expansion was enabled by and helped to enhance the major agricultural expansion of the Gezira clay plains located to the south between the lower Blue and White Nile rivers. The region has been a focus of human settlement for at least 8,000 years, initially by semi-sedentary groups with a fishing-hunting-gathering lifestyle and later by Neolithic groups as shown by hundreds of archaeological sites. Today, Khartoum is a desert city, still very vulnerable to floods triggered by intense convectional storms. Such extreme events may become more common in future, representing a major geomorphological hazard. Moreover, uncontrolled urban and agricultural development is threatening most of the cultural heritage of the region.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/17445647.2020.1758810 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:tjomxx:v:17:y:2021:i:4:p:227-240

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/tjom20

DOI: 10.1080/17445647.2020.1758810

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Maps is currently edited by Dr Mike Smith, Dr Jeremy Porter and Dr Dick Berg

More articles in Journal of Maps from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().