Examining a map of southern Egypt and northern Sudan will reveal a generally straight-line frontier running along the 22nd Parallel. This mathematically drawn line is broken in three places; one is a small salient thrusting north a few dozen miles or so around the Nile River. The other two begin some 240 miles (385 km.) from the coast, when the official frontier parts company with the administrative line and jogs south for a bit, then heads east again, finally to wander north past the administrative line and meanders northeastwards until reaching the Red Sea. Two regions are thus defined: a roughly triangular zone fronting on the sea about 7915 square miles (20500 sq. km.) in area, the Hala'ib; and a much smaller trapezoid in the interior about 772 square miles (2000 sq. km.) in area - the Bir Tawil (for reference sake, the Hala'ib is roughly the size of Slovenia or New Jersey, the Bir Tawil approximates the size of Mauritius). The Bir Tawil is an almost completely flat wasteland, an arid district of sand and rock and some coarse desert-adapted grasses. There are no permanent inhabitants. The Hala'ib is hilly, and contains a few small villages on the coast. Why mention any of this? Because these two regions are at the center of a long-standing border dispute between Egypt and Sudan; both would like control over the Hala'ib, and as a result, neither so much as dares glance at the Bir Tawil - to make any sort of claim at all to it would, by treaty, surrender claims to the much larger and more valuable coastal district. Consequently, the Bir Tawil may be the only genuinely unclaimed land on Earth (aside from Antarctic "lands", decisions over political control of which have been suspended pending international conference since 1959). Both Egypt and the Sudan would be delighted if the other formally took it, and that's not likely to happen any time soon. The only people to have any immediate familiarity with the region are a few Bedawi who sometimes use the place to graze herds upon - they are unconcerned about international boundaries.