Bahr el Ghazal

The Bahr el Ghazal is a region of western South Sudan. Its name comes from the river Bahr el Ghazal.

Geography

The region consists of the states of Northern Bahr el Ghazal, Western Bahr el Ghazal, Lakes, and Warrap. It borders the Central African Republic to the west. It is an area of swamps and ironstone plateaus inhabited mainly by the Dinka people, who make their living through subsistence farming and cattle herding plus Luwo and Fartit tribes.

History

It was historically subject to raids by the Fur invaders from the neighboring region of Darfur. The khedive of Egypt made Bahr al Ghazal his province in 1864. Powerful native merchants, who set themselves up as princes complete with armies, emerged in the area. The most powerful of them, al-Zubayr, fought and defeated a joint Turkish/Egyptian force sent to Bahr el Ghazal in 1873. The khedive conceded defeat and made Bahr el Ghazal a nominal province of Egypt, with al-Zubayr as its governor. It came under Mahdist control in 1884, when Karam Allāh Muḥammad Kurkusāwī was appointed governor (emir).

Bahr el Ghazal River

The Bahr el Ghazal (also spelled Bahr al Ghazal and Baḩr al Ghazāl) is a river in South Sudan. The name translates as "sea of gazelles". The South Sudanese region of Bahr el Ghazal takes its name from the river.

The Bahr el Ghazal is the main western tributary of the Nile. It is 716 kilometres (445 mi) long, flowing through the Sudd wetlands to Lake No, where it joins the White Nile.

Hydrology

The Bahr al Ghazal's drainage basin is the largest of any of the Nile's sub-basins, measuring 520,000 km² (200,800 mi²) in size, but it contributes a relatively small amount of water, about 2 m³/s (70 ft³/s) annually, due to tremendous volumes of water being lost in the Sudd wetlands. Seasonally, the river's discharge ranges from nothing to 48 m³/s (1,700 ft³/s).

According to some sources, the river is formed by the confluence of the Jur River and Bahr al-Arab rivers. However other more recent sources say the river rises in the Sudd wetlands with no definitive source, that the Jur River joins at Lake Ambadi, and the Bahr al-Arab joins below that. The river's drainage basin, including its tributaries, is 851,459 square kilometres (328,750 sq mi) and reaches west to the border of the Central African Republic and northwest to the Darfur region.