Kordofan, also spelled Kurdufān , region constituting the central and southern area of Sudan. It lies between Darfur on the west and the valley of the White Nile River on the east.
Kordofan was originally inhabited by brown-skinned Nubian-speaking peoples, and the region’s name may be derived from the Nubian word kurta, meaning “men.” The region was perhaps under the control of the Christian Tungur dynasty from 900 to 1200 ce, and later it formed part of the African trading empire of Kanem-Bornu. By the 14th century nomadic Arabs from Egypt had spread southward all over Kordofan, amalgamating with some of the indigenous inhabitants and driving the remnants into the hills. In the 17th century the Musabaʾat sultanate was established in the region. In the 18th century both the Funj sultans of Sennar and the sultans of Darfur claimed to control Kordofan, but without permanent effect.
In the early 1820s Egypt established its government in the region. The slave trade was important in Kordofan until Sir Charles Gordon, governor-general of the Sudan, eradicated it, and this led to a brief rebellion in 1878. Kordofan remained under Egyptian rule until 1882, when the Muslim Sudanese leader known as al-Mahdī raised the Sudan to revolt. It was at Kazgeil in Kordofan that Col. William Hicks and his Egyptian troops, sent to crush the Mahdist revolt, were annihilated (November 3, 1883). In 1899, a year after the Battle of Omdurman, the Mahdī’s successor met his death, and the country passed to the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium, Kordofan becoming a province of the Sudan.
Kordofan covers an area of about 150,000 square miles (390,000 square km) in central and southern Sudan. The northern part of the region is desert and has sandy soils and little physiographic relief. There is some acacia scrub, desert grass, and thorny shrub; the landscape becomes increasingly more open and barren toward the north. The southern section of Kordofan is a level or gently undulating clay plain, with the scattered granitic Nuba Mountains rising in the east to an elevation of about 3,000 feet (900 metres). Water is somewhat more abundant around the Nuba Mountains, which are covered with trees and other vegetation.
Severe water shortages restrict crop production in the northern part of Kordofan. Some cereal grains and other food crops are grown, but the arid land is more suited to raising camels, sheep, and goats. Traditional handicrafts are leather work, woodworking, and carpet weaving. Local industries produce oils for soap making from sesame seeds and peanuts (groundnuts). The southern part of Kordofan is somewhat more productive agriculturally, and grains, cotton, sesame, sorghum, and gum arabic are grown using shifting cultivation. The south’s industries include cotton gins, oilseed mills, soap factories, and plants producing leather goods.
Most of the people in Kordofan are Arabs. Minorities include the Nubian, Beja, Daju, Zaghawa, and Darfunj peoples. The principal towns are Al-Ubayyiḍ in the north and Kāduqlī in the south.