Abu Hamad (Arabic: أبو Øمد, Sudanese Arabic: [abuˈħamad]), also spelled Abu Hamed, is a town of Sudan on the right bank of the Nile, 345 mi (555 km) by rail north of Khartoum. It stands at the centre of the great S-shaped bend of the Nile, and from it the railway to Wadi Halfa strikes straight across the Nubian Desert, a little west of the old caravan route to Korosko. The population of Abu Hamad is 69,056. A branch railway, 138 mi (222 km) long, from Abu Hamad goes down the right bank of the Nile to Karima in the Dongola mudiria.
A 19th-century traveler described the town: