Nomenclature

The term "Nubia" is of relatively recent coinage, and refers to a region that never called itself by that name. The name derives etymologically from the names of the indigenous languages spoken in the region: collectively, the Nubian language family.

The term Nubia today is used differently in different contexts. As a cultural and geographical term, it usually designates the region extending southward from the First Cataract of the Nile, in southern Egypt, as far as the confluence of the Blue and White Niles, in central Sudan. As an ethnonym it refers to a much more restricted area, in the far south of Egypt and the far north of the Sudan, that is still inhabited by Nubian speakers who are today entirely surrounded by Arabic-speakers. They are only a small minority of the population in both Egypt and the Sudan.