Khartoum (state)
Khartoum State () is one of the eighteen states of Sudan. Although it is the smallest state by area (22,142 km), it is the most populous (5,274,321 in 2008 census). It contains the country's second largest city by population, Omdurman, and the city of Khartoum, which is the capital of the state as well as the national capital of Sudan. The capital city contains offices of the state, governmental and non-governmental organizations, cultural institutions, and the main airport.
List of Mahdi claimants
Muhammad Ahmad (12 August 1844 – 22 June 1885), a Sudanese Sufi sheikh of the Samaniyya order, declared himself Mahdi in June 1881 and went on to lead a successful military campaign against the Turko-Egyptian government of Sudan. Although he died shortly after capturing the Sudanese capital, Khartoum (1885), the Mahdist state continued under his successor, Abdallahi ibn Muhammad, until 1898, when it fell to the British army following the Battle of Omdurman.