Through the centuries, The Sudan has had many capitals: ancient Napata and Moroe, later Sennar. After the invasion of Mohamed Ali Pasha during the 19th century Khartoum rose as a major city and become Capital. During the Mahdiya national rule Omdurman sprawling along the Nile to replace it for 13 years until 1898.After the Anglo-Egyptian conquest Khartoum again become the capital but it is now El-Asima El-Musalasa meaning “ the three town capital”. That is the real center of modern Sudan: Khartoum General, Khartoum North and Omdurman.

The climate of Khartoum is tropical warm. In the winter (December to February) the weather is soft and temperatures are very low at night and daytime. From April to October the three towns are very very hot and dry. However some rainfalls might be experienced in July to September. The average temperature of Khartoum as follows:

April to October: 33-45 C° (at daytime) and 24 - 28 C° (at night)

December to February: 28-32C° (at day time) 16-21 C° (at night)

The sandstorm "haboub" hits from time.

The ideal time to visit the three towns' capital is from November to March. For a western visitor tropical light clothes (not shorts) are necessary because of the warm weather. Khartoumese dresses themselves shirts with trousers at daytime or traditional jalabia with turban. At nights shirts with tie or white jallabia and white turban. Light color costumes are also being used. For ladies: long skirts and head cover or traditional toub. Cocktailskirt and sunglasses are also used. Coats are only dressed in the period from November to December. Evening dress is used for official occasions and usually in the winter.

The history of Khartoum goes back to 4000 years. Pottery and flint implements have been found which made by people who lived by hunting and fishing when rainfall was far heavier than it is today, when swamps and acacia forests covered this area. They were Negroes of the Caspian Culture- named after Ghafsa in Tunisia- which flourished over vast areas of Africa and died away, leaving behind it only shared, scrapers and arrow-heads. The site continued to be occupied but towns grew in other parts of the Sudan, Sennar, Nepta, Meroe, Shendi, Suakin while Khartoum was merely the meeting place of the two Niles.

At the beginning of the 1821s, the armies of Mohammed Ali of Egypt entered the Sudan in search of gold and slaves. They set up camps Khartoum, commanding river routes to North and South along the White Nile and Southeast to Abyssinia along the Blue Nile, was one of these. Because of its relatively central position, Khartoum - the word means the elephant trunk-( some people say the name is deprived from a plant called Kortum which grew in the area) soon became the seat of Governor-General and then the capital. It expanded quickly and privileges were granted to those who settled there building materials that supplied free. Barracks, military stores and dockyards appeared.

Commerce was booming and traders moved in. Some were Europeans but more often were Copts and Moslems from Egypt, Syrians and Sudanese themselves. Twenty years later, the electric telegraph reached the Capital. On the 18th of February 1885, General Charles Gordon arrived in Khartoum, with the task to evacuating the garrison and abandoning the Sudan to the Mahdi who called for revolution against the Turkish rule. By this time the town’s population had grown to 30,000, a high figure for Africa in the 19the century. There were also 7000 troops. During the years of the Egyptian administration, Khartoum had became a symbol of foreign domination and a few months after its capture the Khalifa Abdullahi, successor to the Mahdi now dead in his turn, decreed that it be abandoned. Omdurman, across the White Nile, became his capital. Khartoum, damaged by siege and sack, was now a quarry for the new city. At the turn of the century, another conqueror came. He looked on Omdurman and decreed that Khartoum should once more be the capital. Kitchener was a lover of grandeur and wished Khartoum to rise to new heights. He issued these instructions:

“I want any quantity of marble stairs, marble pavings, iron railings, looking glasses and fittings.”

Five thousands workers built the new town. Broad avenues were laid out, lined by 7000 trees; the palace where Gordon had lived and died was rebuild.