KHARTOUM

KHARTOUM is the capital city of the Republic of Sudan and of Khartoum State.

Formerly, it served as a caravan depôt in the Soudan, just above the confluence of the Blue and White Niles, 1100 m. S. of Cairo and was an active slave-trade centre, and commercially important. It was captured by the Mahdists in 1885, when General Gordon fell. It was retaken by Lord Kitchener in 1898.

It remained under Egypt and Britain until the country's independence in 1956.