Sudan's advantageous geographic location has made it the recipient to the migrations of many people of different ethnic origins. This led some writers to call it (Mini- Africa). According to the 1995 census, the population of Sudan is 26.6 million people. Annual population growth is 2.8%. Anthropologists and social scientists had identified more than a hundred languages and dialects that are used by the Sudanese. This encompassed more than fifty ethnic groups and six hundred tribe. In addition to common boundaries, Sudan is bound by complex racial and ethnic links to the countries of the region. Throughout the centuries, groups of people and whole tribes crossed freely into the territory of Sudan, where they intermingled and culturally blended with the native population. In this respect, Islam played a pivotal role in consolidating tribal unions and kingdoms, eventually creating the so called Sudanese nation in the early sixteenth century. Today, the main tribal divisions in Northern Sudan comprise:

a.The Baraabra (Nubian) tribes of the northern Nile valley, still maintaining the derivatives of their original Kushite language;
b.The Hadendawa, Bishariyiin and Bani Amer of the Red Sea Hills, speaking their own Hamitic and Semitic languages;
c.A central mass of "Arab" tribes, occupying the entire central belt of Sudan, including the Kababish, Kawahla, Ja'aliyin,the various Baggara pastoral tribes, etc.
d.Descendants of earlier peoples, such as the Nuba, Fur and lngessana , predominantly still speaking their own language, together with Arabic.