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The main geographical feature of Sudan is the Nile River, which, with its tributaries (including the Atbara, Blue Nile, and White Nile rivers), traverses the country from south to north. The Nile system provides irrigation for strips of agricultural settlement for much of its course in Sudan and also for the Al Gezira plain, situated between the White Nile and the Blue Nile, just south of their confluence at Khartoum. In the extreme north, the Nile broadens into Lake Nasser, formed by the Aswan High Dam in Egypt.
Much of the rest of the country is made up of an undulating plateau (1,000–2,000 ft/305–610 m high), which rises to higher levels in the mountains located in the northeast near the Red Sea, as well as in the central, western, and extreme southern portions of the country. The highest point in Sudan is Kinyeti (10,456 ft/3,187 m), in the southeast. Rainfall diminishes from south to north in Sudan; thus, the south is characterized by swampland (the Sudd region) and woodland, the center by savanna and grassland, and the north by desert and semidesert. Sudan is divided into 26 states.
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