An ancient district in extreme western Sudan, between Kordofan and Wadai. There has been a shadowy state, or series of states, of some sorts here since at least 2500 BCE, and a recognizable link exists to one degree or another between the early indigeneous people of Darfur and the people of pre-dynastic Egypt. The communities formed from early times one leg of triangular trade routes between Pharaonic Egypt on the one hand and Napata/Meroë on the other, and it has been suggested that surviving elements of the Kingdom of Cush may have set up a dynasty here after that state fell in c. 350 CE.