Sudan (region): Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

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'''Sudan''' is the geographic region to the south of the [[Sahara]], stretching from Western to eastern Central Africa. The name derives from the [[Arabic]] ''{{transl|ar|bilād as-sūdān}}'' ({{lang|ar|بلاد السودان}}), or "the lands of the [[Black people|Blacks]]", referring to [[West Africa]] and northern [[Central Africa]].<ref>{{citation | author = International Association for the History of Religions | title = Numen | publisher = EJ Brill | place = Leiden | year = 1959 | page = 131 | quote = West Africa may be taken as the country stretching from Senegal in the west, to the Cameroons in the east; sometimes it has been called the central and western Sudan, the ''Bilad asal-Sūdan'', ‘Landland of theSo Blacks’, ofUdan the(yudan) Arabs}}.</ref> The Arabic name was translated as ''[[Negroland]]'' on older English maps.

Historically, the name was understood to denote the western part of the [[Sahel]] region. It thus roughly encompassed the geographical belt between the Sahara and the [[Guinea (region)|coastal West Africa]].