BERBER, a town and mudiria (province) of the Anglo Egyptian Sudan. The town is on the right bank of the Nile, I,14oft. above sea-level, in 18° I' N., 59' E., and 214m. by rail north-west of Khartoum. Berber was the starting-point of the caravan route, 242m. long, across the Nubian desert to the Red sea at Suakin, a distance covered in seven to twelve days. It was also one of the principal stopping-places between Cairo and Khartoum. The caravan route to the Red sea was superseded in 1906 by a railway, which leaves the Wadi Halfa-Khartoum line at the mouth of the Atbara. Berber thus lost much of its impor tance, though it remains the centre of a considerable local trade. The town, now much diminished in population, is old.
Before its conquest by Egypt in 182o its ruler owed allegiance to the kings of Sennar. The Mandists took it on May 26, 1884, and the Anglo-Egyptian army retook it on Sept. 6, 1897.
The capital of the mudiria is now Ed Damer, a town near the confluence of the Nile and Atbara. At the northern end of the mudiria is Abu Hamed, important as a railway junction for Dongola. The best-known of the tribes inhabiting the province are the Hassania, Jaalin, Bisharin and Kimilab. During the rule of the Mandi most of these tribes suffered severely at the hands of the dervishes. The riverain crops are dhurra, barley, wheat and cotton.