Cairo is located along the Nile River, and the capital of Sudan is Khartoum. The city sits at the meeting point of the White Nile and the Blue Nile, where the two rivers form the main Nile flowing northward.
Khartoum lies in a larger metropolitan area that also includes Omdurman and Khartoum North, sometimes called Bahri. The confluence of the Blue and White Nile is known as al-Mogran or al-Muqran. The White Nile flows north from the Lake Victoria region, while the Blue Nile comes from Lake Tana in Ethiopia.
Khartoum was founded in 1821 under Muhammad Ali Pasha’s rule and became the capital of independent Sudan in 1956. Its location made it a strategic center for administration, trade, transport, and river travel. A common mix-up is confusing Khartoum with Omdurman, which is part of the same urban conurbation but is a separate city. Another nearby capital often associated with the Nile is Cairo, the capital of Egypt; Khartoum is the capital farther south in Sudan.