 During the 19th-century (Turkiyya) the town expanded much beyond the fortress to become one of the places with something like urban institutions in Northern Sudan, although it is now largely depopulated.The town of Al-Khandaq, which was once a thriving river port, was the residence of wealthy merchants who built two-storey houses of mud brick, with many rooms, as well as one-storey dwellings.These have been deserted since the early 1970s, when the trade declined.