Atbara (Sudan)
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Arabic عطبرة Atbara |
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| Coordinates | 17 ° 43 ′ N , 33 ° 59 ′ E | ||
| Basic data | |||
| Country | Sudan | ||
| Nahr an-Nil | |||
| ISO 3166-2 | SD NO | ||
| Residents | 139,768 (2010) | ||
Atbara ( Arabic عطبرة ʿAṭbara ; Alternative spelling Atbarah ) is a city in the Sudanese state of Nahr an-Nil and is located at the confluence of the Atbara River with the Nile , 10 kilometers north of the provincial capital ad-Damir at an altitude of about 350 meters. The city is the administrative center and main maintenance station of the Sudanese railway .
population
The Atbara area has 139,768 inhabitants (2010 calculation).
Population development:
| year | Residents |
|---|---|
| 1956 (n / a) | 36,300 |
| 1973 (census) | 66,116 |
| 1983 (census) | 73.009 |
| 1993 (census) | 87,878 |
| 2010 (calculation) | 139,768 |
history
Atbara's urban development began with the construction of the railroad by troops from Anglo-Egyptian Sudan . It was in preparation for the advance into Omdurman to crush the Mahdi uprising that began in 1881 . A first railway line was expanded from Wadi Halfa along the Nile to the south in the mid-1890s , and construction of a second route through the desert began in Wadi Halfa in early January 1897. The latter was completed by Abu Hamad in October of the same year and enabled the supply of Kitchener's armed forces , which were encamped on the Nile between Abu Hamad and Atbara until January 1898. The victorious battle against the Mahdi's army took place on April 8, 1898, a few kilometers southeast of Atbara near Nakheila on the north bank of the Atbara River. After that, the railway line was expanded and reached Atbara on July 3, 1898. This month, for example, three dismantled gunboats were transported by train to Atbara, which were used in the decisive battle against the Mahdi.
In 1906, the construction of a branch line to the port city of Port Sudan began , which gained in importance from the mid-1920s due to the expansion of cotton growing. Atbara became the national railway center at the junction of the two main railway lines. Until 1924 the station was operated by the personnel of Egyptian and British military battalions, then by the Sudanese Railway Company. In 1939 Sudan Railways was the largest industrial employer in the country; most of the 20,000 employees were stationed in Atbara.
In the 1940s there were over 300 different gradations in the hierarchy of work and in wages. Injustice and everyday racism by British inspectors led to the formation of the first union in Sudan among railroad workers in 1946. One of the most radical trade union movements in colonial Africa emerged in 1947 from a strike carried out with the support of Egyptian trade unions. The railway workers had close ties with the Communist Party (Sudanese Communist Party, SCP). When President Numairi turned away from communism in the late 1970s, roads were expanded in order to reduce the strategic importance of the railroad and thus the power of the union. In 1981 Numairi crushed the railroad workers' union. In 1990, thousands of railway workers were laid off; only repair work is carried out in the large workshops.
economy
Atbara is an important rail hub for freight transport and has the only repair shops in the country that are in constant operation. South of the Atbara River is one of the largest cement factories in Sudan. The production of Atbara Cement Company Ltd. amounted to 139,300 tons in 2001 and 154,300 tons in 2002. It was built in 1947 as the first cement factory. The country's cement production has to be supplemented by imports from Egypt due to the increased demand caused by the boom in the oil industry that has been taking place since 1999 .
Cityscape
After the time as a fortified British military camp, urban development took place through the construction of city districts separated according to population groups. Atbara is strictly divided into two halves by the railway line. In the east is the densely built, lively market center with two to three-story, faceless concrete buildings. To the west of the railway line is the railway district (generally: Sikka Hadid ), a spacious and exclusive area of the former British residents, which extends to the banks of the Nile, one kilometer away. A street grid with wide, shady avenues was laid out, the brick bungalows with gardens behind high walls made of the same bricks are well preserved. Closer to the railway line, the British had row houses built and the brick-walled, conical-roof round houses typical of railway stations for Egyptian railway workers. One kilometer south of the center there is a modern villa area in the area of the landing stage for the Nile ferry.
Infrastructure
About two kilometers south of the center, local traffic crosses the Atbara River on a narrow two-lane iron bridge, and a new road bridge for heavy goods traffic is three kilometers upstream. Trains run over the old Atbara Railway Bridge . Halfway between Atbara and ad-Damir there is a bridge over the Nile. The Atbara Airport is of Khartoum fly from.
Climate table
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Average monthly temperatures and rainfall for Atbara
Source: wetterkontor.de
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Individual evidence
- ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original dated December 29, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Edward M. Spiers (Ed.): Sudan. The Reconquest Reappraised. Frank Cass, Portland OR et al. 1998, ISBN 0-7146-4307-6 , p. 62.
- ↑ Ahmad Alawad Sikainga: "City of Steel and Fire". A Social History of Atbara, Sudan's Railway Town, 1906-1984. Heinemann et al., Portsmouth NH 2002, ISBN 0-325-07107-1 .
