Kassala is the capital of Kassala State in eastern Sudan, on the banks of the Gash River. The Egyptian army founded it as a garrison town in 1834 after Sudan's conquest in 1821, and it endured a Mahdist siege in the 1880s before surrendering in 1886, with Italy occupying it from 1894 to 1896 and again briefly during the Second World War. Its population was about 411,574 in 2025. Kassala is a market city known for its fruit gardens and for the Khatmiyya Mosque, built in 1840, and hosts an ethnically diverse population of Beja, Beni-Amer and Rashaida people alongside refugees from the Ethiopian-Eritrean war.
Facts
Founding Year Population Estimate Year Elevation (m) Elevation Band Climate Zone Sources
1. Kassala (Wikidata)
P571 (inception)
+1840-00-00T00:00:00Z
P1082 (population)
population 536,009 (2010)
P625 (coordinate location)
latitude 15.45, longitude 36.4
P2044 (elevation above sea level)
elevation 505 m
P1082 (population), P585 (point in time)
population 536009 (2010)
View the Source2. GeoNames: Kassala - GeoNames
GeoNamescities500 record 372753
15.45099 36.39998 P PPLA SD 52 401477 507 Africa/Khartoum
Place record, elevation
Elevation ca. 507 m
View the Source 3. Koeppen-Geiger map (Kottek et al., University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna): World Map of the Koeppen-Geiger Climate Classification, present climate data
Koeppen-Geiger map (Kottek et al., University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna)Koeppen-Geiger-ASCII.txt grid cell 15.25, 36.25Quote, Koeppen-Geiger-ASCII.txt grid cell 15.25, 36.25
15.25 36.25 BWh
Kassala (Wikipedia)
In Group: Cities of Northern Africa (World), Wikipedia; part-of country and UN M49 subregionView the Source Reader Challenges (0)
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