KHARTOUM, the capital of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, on the left bank of the Blue Nile immediately above its junction with the White Nile in 15° 36' N., 32° 32' E., and 1,252 f t. above the sea. It is 432 m. by rail S.W. of Port Sudan, on the Red Sea, and 1,345 m. S. of Cairo by rail and steamer. Pop. (1926) with suburbs, but excluding Omdurman, 45,116.
The city, laid out on a plan drawn up by Lord Kitchener in 1898, has a picturesque aspect with its numerous handsome stone and brick buildings surrounded by gardens and its groves of palms and other trees. The river esplanade, 2 m. long, contains the chief buildings. Parallel with it is Khedive Avenue, of equal length. The rest of the city is in squares, the streets forming the design of the union jack. In the centre of the esplanade is the governor-general's palace, occupying the site of the palace destroyed by the Mandists in 1885. It is a three-storeyed building with arcaded verandas and a fine staircase leading to a loggia on the first floor. Here a tablet indicates the spot in the old palace where General Gordon fell. In front of the southern façade, which looks on to Khedive Avenue, is a bronze statue of General Gordon seated on a camel, a copy of the statue by Onslow Ford at Chatham, England.
Government offices and private villas are on either side of the palace, and beyond, on the east, are the Sudan Club, the military hospital, and the Gordon Memorial College. At the western end of the esplanade are the zoological gardens, the chief hotel, the Coptic church and the Mudiria House (residence of the governor of Khartoum). Running south from Khedive Avenue at the spot where the Gordon statue stands, is Victoria Avenue, leading to Abbas Square, in the centre of which is the great mosque with two minarets. On the north-east side of the square are the public mar kets. The Anglican Cathedral, the principal banks and business houses, are in Khedive Avenue. There are Maronite and Greek churches, an Austrian Roman Catholic mission, a large and well equipped civil hospital and a museum for Sudan archaeology. A system of electric tramways, completed in 1928, serves the city as well as Khartoum North and Omdurman.
On the right (northern) bank of the Blue Nile is the suburb of Khartoum North, where is the principal railway station. It is joined to the city by a bridge (completed 1910) containing a roadway and the railway. The steamers for the White and the
Blue Nile start from the quay along the esplanade. West of the zoological gardens is the point of junction of the Blue and White Niles and here is the bridge, completed in 1928, to Omdurman (q.v.) on the west bank of the White Nile a mile below Khartoum.
From its geographical position Khartoum is admirably adapted as a commercial and political centre. It is the great entre* for the trade of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. By the Nile waterways there is easy transport from the southern and western equatorial provinces and from Sennar and other eastern districts. Through Omdurman come the exports of Kordofan and Darfur, while by the Red Sea railway there is access to the markets of the world.
The population is heterogeneous. The official class is composed chiefly of Europeans, but had a large leaven of Egyptians until the latter were repatriated after the disturbances of 1924. The traders are mostly Greeks, Syrians and Copts, while many tribes of the Sudan are represented in the negro and Arab inhabitants.
In 1822 the Egyptians established a permanent camp here and out of this grew the city, which in 1830 was chosen as the capital of the Sudanese possessions of Egypt. It got its name from the resemblance of the promontory at the confluence of the two Niles to an elephant's trunk, the meaning of khartum in the dialect of Arabic spoken in the locality. The city rapidly acquired impor tance as the Sudan was opened up by travellers and traders, be coming, besides the seat of much legitimate commerce, a great slave mart. In 1884, at the time of the Mandist rising, General Gordon was sent to Khartoum to arrange for the evacuation by the Egyptians of the Sudan. At Khartoum he was besieged by the Mandists, whose headquarters were at Omdurman. Khartoum was captured and Gordon killed on Jan. 26, 1885. Nearly every build ing in Khartoum was destroyed by the mandists and the city abandoned in favour of Omdurman, which place remained the headquarters of the mandi's successor, the khalifa Abdullah, till September 1898, when it was taken by the Anglo-Egyptian forces under General (afterwards Lord) Kitchener, and the seat of gov ernment again transferred to Khartoum. In 1899 the railway from Wadi Halfa was completed to Khartoum, and in 1906 through communication by rail was established with the Red Sea.